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RE: STEEM: The Disproportionate Power Balance with Downvotes
Indeed sometimes the steem ocean does feel like a toxic place. I am fairly used to getting the 10% downvotes which do take 0% away from the value of the post. But yesterday things did change. I did get a 100% downvote from a so called curator account, taking away 20% of the value of my post. I do think that when placing a downvote, the downvoter should be forced to add an explanation for the downvote. Only this measure would decrease the number of downvotes by a lot.
While receiving a downvote is bad enough, it is just worse when you don't know why you have been downvoted.
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I'm completely agree with you, @fullcoverbetting . The same I say, because something like that happened to me yesterday. It feels as if they want to sabotage your work and progress just because of the fact you post different than them, and that's horrible by experience :(
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Yes, the little ones are annoying but mean nothing... I've picked up more than a few of the large ones now....
It is weird that the best way to try and convince someone is by downvoting... no discussion no terms... lucky we don't conduct ourselves like this off the internet!
Here's one of my recent efforts to speak reasonably on the subject of abusive downvotes,
https://steemit.com/steemit/@logiczombie/q5cex8
Abusive Downvotes? Sorry but those were some of the best cases for downvoting:
slanderous tripe post characterizing the community as a Cesspool of Pedophiles and other such low level scum.
You on the other hand think that it's a misunderstanding, that the poster didn't deserve do be instanuked and seem deluded into thinking that removing the word pedo from a flurry of equally inflammatory insults changes any fucking thing.
O yeah, A+ for effort.
If you believe that all ad hominem attacks should be downvoted, I can actually agree with you on that.
However, the "problem" here is that only SOME ad hominem attacks seem to be WORTHY of downvoting and that "standard" seems to be HIGHLY SUBJECTIVE AND SELF-SERVING.
Those aren't ad hominems. An ad hominem is not simply an insult, it's initial position is one that revolves around something OTHER than the other person and their character, motives, beliefs, but it falsely tries to suggest or indicate that it's about the other person, what their intent is, etc..
So when the issue at hand doesn't exist and the only position is that Person A is such and such, it's simply a matter of slander/libel, an insult, a Personal Attack and that is not protected speech or Free anywhere, it's called Defamation. There's certainly no problem of "only certain ad hominems attacks get downvoted" or that downvoting was disproportionate, the problem is that Defamation is regarded as a common logical fallacy.
From your own quote,
So If I suggest that you're holding a particular viewpoint because you're paid by an interested party, that's an ad hominem attack.
If I suggest that your viewpoint is invalid (wholesale) because you're a moron, or some other derogatory term (like child molester), that's an ad hominem attack.
It really doesn't matter if the ad hominem attack is "true" or not. It's still an ad hominem attack if it's aimed at the person or their character or their motives (the mind reader fallacy is another common example) instead of at the LOGICAL STRUCTURE or COHERENCE of their argument.
An ad hominem attack is often in service of a rush-to-disqualify a debate partner.
Defamation and slander and libel are synonymous with ad hominem attack.
Indeed yet when there's no position and it's simply an insult it's not an ad hominem. Not all insults are ad hominems and not all ad hominems are insults, but all ad hominens must have a position or argument that it tries to undermine by changing of position/argument. Without any position to defer from it's simply a Personal Attack.
I am confused!
I needed to look it up.
ad hominem
adj. Attacking a person's character or motivations rather than a position or argument.
adj. Appealing to the emotions rather than to logic or reason.
n. To the man; to the interests or passions of the person.
how can you insult someone when it is not about wanting to change a persons way of seeing something? ether the person you are insulting or other onlookers.
Is it one of my blind spots or one of yours? I am not sure yet.
(1) Please provide an example of an ad hominem attack that is NOT an insult.
(2) Please provide an example of an insult that is NOT an ad hominem attack.
It is a nice effort on your part to try and bring calm...
However, I do agree with the downvoting in this case... perhaps not so much on the continued downvoting... but I wasn't there and I don't understand the whole situation and history.
If name-calling is a downvotable offense, then there's basically no guiding principle.
Which is fine, I guess, if that's the consensus (simply add it to the list of rules).
Just don't try to pretend that there's a difference between "name-calling" and "libel".
And some sort of warning would seem to be in order before stomping a newb down to (0) rep.
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I imagine that a lot of the forced "explanations" would be a spicy repertoire of singular but choice four letter words.