X weighs adding a downvote button to replies — but it doesn't want to emulate Reddit
X weighs adding a downvote button to replies — but it doesn't want to emulate Reddit | TechCrunch
I don't know if anyone remembers it, but Twitter actually had dislike as experimental feature for some users for some time before Elon, I think like 2 or 3 years ago, I remember having it on one of my accounts
News article from 2021 - https://www.pcmag.com/news/twitter-dislike-button-coming-soon-nope
Yeah all that X can really do now for new features is roll out things that were half-built before Elon fired everyone.
I like that everyone thinks it makes a difference whether or not this is a feature, when in reality people have a tendency to carve a desire path to anything they feel makes sense. Twitter may not have a downvote but they do have the "ratio" which does basically the same thing using the mechanics of Twitter.
Given the rumours surrounding the CEO of Twitter, and how he may have pushed for his account to be prioritised because the algorithm knocked it down for being blocked so much, this feature doesn't seem like it has long for the world, unless he makes them add an exception for him.
This is about that Twitter website people used to use right? Sorry, out of the loop here.
They had them before. What makes it any different now?
It desperately needs this. Very inflammatory tweets can get widely circulated by brigading with no real way to stop it even if it's a wildly unpopular sentiment.
I'd prefer a filter for blue checkmarks.
I think they should go all in on emulating reddit. In fact, I think they should get more in line with the naming scheme of reddit, an re-rename their brand to X-it.
I didn't even know x still existed
Half the content is screenshots from Reddit which in turn are half the time just screenshots from Twitter. May as well just keep the train going at this point.
On a more serious note, downvotes seem to be never any good for any forum or discussion platform of any kind. I’ve yet to see them used as a “not contributing“ button or whatever other idealistic definition sites come up with. It is almost universally a disagree button and every community I’ve seen that gets rid of it is better for it. I mean think about it: how many conversations have we all seen where people start bickering about votes? Passive aggressive edits because one person got one downvote, somebody acting as if their opinion is correct because they have 3 upvotes and the other person has -2. It’s honestly just not healthy and is primarily used as a cudgel rather than any meaningful sorting of comments and posts.
Twitter is already a shit hole of negativity and toxicity. Do they really need to add the ability downvote people?
Edit: I guess I was not direct enough about this point, but I am not against people controlling the content in front of them or deciding what is good/bad. I am saying specifically that the downvote mechanism specifically is not a good tool. Especially showing downvotes.
While it's true that the downvote often gets abused as a way to stifle otherwise-good discussion, without it it's hard to deal with discussion that truly should NOT be happening.
There's a reason election denial is more common and looks more legitimate on Facebook and Twitter. It's because they don't have a mechanism for people to nuke that discussion out of the top of the thread.
Sure they can. Moderators/admins can remove comments. If you’re talking about just things thrown out on Facebook, at some point people need to unfriend/block people they don’t want to associate with, because unfortunately Facebook et al are never going to do what needs to be done.
I agree with you there is a problem of content moderation. But downvotes are not the solution and have never proven to be an effective deterrent. Removal/deplatforming is the only tool that has proven consistently effective. It’s why on a discord server i help run we have very low tolerance towards people who are sufficiently disruptive or have a chilling effect on conversations, even if they aren’t breaking the letter of the law. At some point you just have to get rid of these people or they cause a disproportionate amount of damage. It’s amazing what 5 people can do to a community of 500.
And before somebody goes on some rant about power-hungry mods and uses some example of how they were “banned for literally no reason“ where they probably did something but won’t show us what happened, the community actually really likes the way we do things and we only end up booting a couple of people a year because we have a handle on it lol
I prefer slashdot's moderation system over any of the others.
Here, I'd like to see limitless upvoting, but downvotes bottom out at -3.
This may reduce dogpiling whilst allowing the downvoted parent a better chance to be engaged-with, and more opportunities to present their points.
I think a cap is a great idea. Or just don’t show vote counts and push down downvoted stuff at least. But showing them to people tends to produce dog piling and false consensus
One of the things I like about Slashdot's system is that it requires a reason for a downvote. Of course that doesn't prevent people from downvoting disingenuously, but it nudges users away from downvoting just because they disagree.
I think for most social systems, the UI I'd use is a report or flag button that pops up a second step with a list of reasons, and like Slashdot, show the most selected reason next to low-ranked posts.
Actually that's a golden idea, I haven't even thought about that, would love to see some software on here implementing a downvote cap, also crushing downvoted comments could be a better way instead of hiding them
For evidence you're right: see the downvotes on this comment. I've seen so many things downvoted that didn't deserve it. People can misunderstand your comment and suddenly you're at -20. Just a couple days ago this toxic fuck was telling me all sorts of weird things they claimed to know about me because I was downvoted for an opinion I wouldn't have thought was unpopular at all. A couple people misunderstood, then a bunch more saw the downvotes and made false assumptions. It's bizarre.
It is what it is! I don’t even see downvotes on my end but not surprised it happened. It’s magic internet points so whatever lol
Blåhaj doesnt have downvotes and I occasionally miss being able to down vote people replying to requests with something that someone specifically said they don't want in the full-text. For other stuff, report tends to be applicable, particularly spam and racist trolls who just come to advertise or attempt to change the culture of Lemmy.
well they already have the nazis and csam.....
also let's be honest; this is just another way for bigots to harass marginalised people on twitter.