In defense of the downvote option: not having it is the actual censorship
Those who oppose the ability to negate upvotes argue that it will allow censorship by opening up an easy way to silence a minority. The opposite is true: the negation of the need to negate upvotes is the actual censorship. You are effectively denying the validity of someone's need.
(image credit: www.thecepblog.com)
Arguments defending the status quo (where we have only one way to vote: upvote) boil down to this: we will open Pandora's box and negative behavior will prevail:
I personally don't like the concept of negative voting on a platform like this. I think it is too easy to abuse and just does not feel right to me.
On steemit currently 10 people could like my post and thus pledge value, and someone can come along and remove that value.
It's that negative voting isn't fun. It's not fun for people doing the negative voting a lot of the time and it's not fun for the people receiving the negative votes.
My question is this: what am I supposed to do when I see a weak post (it's my subjective judgement) drawing an excessive amount (again, my subjective judgement) from our limited funds? I feel the need to do something about it (as I have a share in these funds), but I can't.
Currently I have only two options:
- suppress my feelings and do nothing
- embrace my feelings and abuse the abuse flag (pan intended) and then feel bad about it (I've hurt the author's reputation and added my bit to the confusion about the flag's meaning)
So both choices are bad. I feel powerless even though I have Steem Power.
And now the anti-negative-vote folks come along and tell me that I am just being jealous and instead I should focus on my own writing or just find other stuff I like and use my Steem Power there.
So they tell me that it's good that the system does not allow me to exercise my will because actually it's just bad behavior. They remove the legitimacy from what I feel is right. I might be wrong in my judgement about the post I want to downvote, but the existence of my feelings is undeniable. Yet they silence my feelings because they know better. For me it's no different to censorship: instead of words we gag someone's feeling. And as such, it will backfire badly because it does not solve the problem, it just hides it.
What about giving the unsatisfied an easy way to vent their feelings? This way we don't reject them, they become part of the process, even if they are wrong. This way they can feel their vote matters a bit, is allowed and is treated on equal terms with the opposite view.
We are worried about negative votes silencing potential minorities, yet we blindly exterminate the existing minority: those who want to negate the payout.
Even if my feelings are negative and counterproductive, I should be able to express them by executing my will and be confronted with the outside world. Be exposed. But not be suppressed and told that what I feel is bad or will have negative consequences. If that's the case - let the world deal with it, instead of preemptively try to stop it.
@dana-edwards says:
If I vote to take something away from someone else then it damages the user experience not just for that someone else but also for everyone who witnessed me do it.
How do you know this? I really take it badly when someone tells me what's good for me and what's not.
Imagine this: you publish a post which says only this: "I need money to buy a new car" and some people, who happen to know you personally, upvote your post just because they are your friends. I see this happening and negate those upvotes. You, as the author of the post, are obviously not happy about it, but does it really damage the user experience for everyone who witnessed me doing it? I guess not. For them I'm the righteous one who prevented some kind of abuse. And it was an abuse by those who upvoted, not by you, the author of the post.
So no, we can't predict all the outcomes. We can only say that offering an extra option "damages the user experience" when it adds to the confusion, which is clearly not the case here. The case here is that we add a new dimension to the way people can interact with each other. So let them interact and sort it out among themselves. Otherwise we are playing a totalitarian game: we know better what's good for you.
@tombstone says:
The difference is that by casting votes affirmatively for one thing rather than negatively against another, we'll avoid causing downvoting wars and an otherwise nasty and cutthroat culture here.
Here is the thing: it's my certainty that I need this feature versus your speculation that this feature will be abused and will cause negative consequences. In other words, it's something that undoubtedly exists (unless you question my ability to define my needs) versus something that might come into existence but we can't be sure (unless you have some special ability to predict human behavior with 100% accuracy).
And finally something positive, a quote from @pulpably:
Couldn't it simply be [that we] understood that downvotes have nothing to do with who wrote it or what it's about? Couldn't we educate ourselves to expect a rise and fall of post value with no cause to be butt-hurt? I know I'm a dreamer...
This is a beautiful attitude: first we need to make a leap of faith and arrange the system the way we want it to be in our dreams (so that it accommodates all our needs) and only when this proves to be an illusion (because of the flaws of human nature) we can reconsider and possibly go back to what we have now.
Let's not throw away a possibly valuable idea just because of our fears. It's our dreams that should drive our actions, not fears.
EDIT: After doing some introspection I think this is what disturbs me the most: we remove part of our freedom assuming it will have bad consequences before this fear was proven to materialize in real life. For me, limiting our freedom is a last resort, not a preemptive action aimed to yield to our fears.
But the biggest paradox here is that currently you are able to do what is feared by those who oppose the downvote option. You are just invited to do collateral damage to reach your goal.
This logic is completely beyond my understanding: even if we assume that lowering somebody's payout is damaging, it is preferred that you to do more damage (by using the flag), than give you an option to do less damage (by giving you a downvote tool).
To end on a more positive note, imagine how nice it would feel if some of the high-earning-by-default authors could do this: write a post, get all the usual upvotes to reach prime visibility and then after 24 hours just downvote their own post to release the funds. I don't expect them to do it, but having this option of self-downvote opens us up to the bright side of our nature, which is always a good thing.
Not allowing a down-vote is the worst kind of "group-think." It is impersonating the various social media sites that most of us fled to come here! (Twitter, Facebook, and other big, dumb sites)
Additionally, it is not the way any intelligent, feedback-oriented system operates in nature. If animals on Earth lacked pain receptors, they couldn't even have risen past the intelligence of worms.
The entire discipline of Cybernetics tells us that systems that don't allow negative feedback are "less intelligent" than systems that allow both positive and negative feedback.
From a political and cybernetics perspective, (A First-Amendment Cultural perspective that favors classically liberal or "libertarian" western civilization) no information should ever actually be censored. And even stupid, weak, poorly-written posts should not be "minimized" or "removed."
From an "optimized internet" perspective, only those posts labeled (done with conscious effort, not as a value assigned to a certain number of downvotes) as "SPAM" can legitimately be minimized, because that's solving a "perverse-incentive-filtering" problem, not a "same-incentivization-level" filtering problem.
Do both! In any case, it's possible to allow down-voting, and retain upvoting. Simply don't remove the separate record of the upvotes, and allow filtering by both! (Heck, for that matter, one could allow users a slider-bar that divides the weight between positive to negative from 1 to zero).
For more information, I recommend reading "Out of Control" by Kevin Kelly to get a sense of the value of feedback and correction(including negative feedback).
Additionally, Marvin Minsky's paper on "Negative Expertise" is probably vital to this discussion: http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/NegExp.mss.txt
You have at least one other option: Accept your feelings and move on. Put that post out of your mind. Focus instead on creating content that only you can, or on consuming other people's posts that you do enjoy.
This is exactly the superior attitude I've been trying to unmask: you tell me to accept it because you know better what's good for me and others.
Here is the paradox: you might be right and actually accepting it is the best way to deal with it. But I need to be able to choose this option myself, instead of you forcing me into this option by taking away the choice.
I'm correcting your enumeration of the options open to you because you missed out an important one. I'm not telling you to do anything.
I posted a comment explaining one additional way of dealing with the experience you described. If you believe this is 'forcing' you to do anything then I don't believe we share enough common ground to talk productively. Best of luck.
You've added no third option, as difference between suppressing and accepting is very subtle and indistinguishable in this case.
It's as clear as day to me, and I think the world-at large agrees. See this study for instance: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23910791 The two terms mean quite different things.
If the tool doesn't exist, then the option to use the tool doesn't exist. This is in the domain of "physical force" because the default is non-existence of any choice that is dependent on a tool. Non-existence of a choice implies "no choice" or "force," in the sense it is used here. It's not coercion, but it's like standing at the bottom of a cliff and not having any tool necessary to get to the top of the cliff.
Since this forum is a cliff climbing tool in the prior analogy, feedback can improve it by suggesting better features that would help us get where we're going.
lol come on.
In the situation where you are downvoting to reduce a payout that you find excessive given the post quality, it assumes that the post already has a lot of powerful positive votes that will increase the author's reputation anyway. By downvoting, you are not suddenly hurting the author's reputation. You are simply cancelling the positive effect of some of the votes which anyway you feel were not deserved. If the post is weak, it's fair enough that it shouldn't increase too much the author's reputation either if the reputation is to remain a meaningful indicator of quality, trust and status.
This explanation does not change much: the flag is meant to affect reputation and that's how people mentally treat it: as a warning message to the author. And I have no message to the author, I just want to oppose those who upvoted.
Anyway, your reply only reinforces my point: if you say we already have this functionality (which I don't agree) then making it more explicit and clear to use, changes nothing. So if a change is proposed which effectively changes nothing - why are so many people against it?
My gut reaction was that I hated to agree with this post, because I want to see people become popular and make money. But you're right, so in service of the truth, I upvoted it. Stay strong.
I totally support the right to downvote/flag a post for a number of valid reasons however I cant see how 100 (or more upvotes) can be cancelled by 1 flag. I know this falls into the realm of Whales wielding their massive Steem Power like Thor wields Mjölnir but it still doesnt make it right
But consider this: if a whale misbehaves (as you described), as the system is transparent, another whale will come along and negate the misbehaving one.
And when I say "misbehave" I mean wiping out your payout completely, not reducing it by 20-30%. This is all subjective, there can't be strict rules separating valid opinions from abuse, but it's not crazy to assume that most (not all) people will behave responsibly.
The only assumptions we make here are these:
Even if delusional pollyana optimism rules the day here, and people upvote things for superficial reasons, and then fail to down-vote the superficial or delusional but "positive," the downvote feature is still essential. It's negative feedback, which increases Bayesian optimality or "intelligence."
Yes i hope our whales are more of the Benevolent type but have seen a number of cases where the flag was done at the last minute which could be considered spiteful.
You don't need a downvote option. You will continue to survive without it. You clearly want the option. As I read through this post any sympathy for the suggestion dissipated. I get the clear sense that it is not so much about being able to provide feedback (which is what comments can do), it is about being able to exert control over what another person can make with their work. I can choose to add to their income through my vote or I can make a respectful comment pointing out what I don't like about the post or, I can move on and no one is the wiser.
And you clearly don't want me (or anybody else) to have the option. That's quite oppressive, isn't? You feel entitled to block my options (because I might misbehave) while you deny me the right to block your payout (even though it comes from funds we share). Where is the logic in this? How come your fear trump my freedom?
It's amazing how this mindset works.
You even say that I want to "exert control" when actually it's you who want to exert control over me and deny me the option that I say I need. I call it "control" because you want to limit my options, as you clearly don't trust me (or anybody else) to have the downvote tool in my hands - I'll do stupid things with it.
This is exactly how governments perceive reality: people are irresponsible and need to be guided and protected, otherwise they'll hurt themselves. The last thing a government want to see is people acting in a responsible way.
Regarding my wish to exert control - it's not about "what another person can make with their work". All I want to do is execute my Steem Power (by upvoting everything else but X) and if any control is involved in it, it's about controlling our shared funds, not other people's income. If we had unlimited resources - then yes, you'd have a valid point.
Your lack of sympathy is irrelevant here. Only these two aspects matter: some people wanting it and the devs willing to implement it. This feature does not take anything away from you. It might affect you but you need to accept it, as this is the nature of the game when we share limited resources.
Maybe you need to accept that you are not necessarily going to get your wants met unless you own the platform.
The fact is, there are a lot of irresponsible people who will go to great lengths to claim their own reasonable responsible approach until their want is granted. Then the egomaniac comes out.
You currently have the option of upvoting what you want and ignoring the rest. Live and let live.
You forgot about the third option, the flag, which turns legitimate motivation (the desire to lower a payout) into misbehavior. So you prefer people to misbehave than face the truth that some people think you've been overpaid. I prefer the opposite.
This is an internally flawed argument in my eyes. Your need for a downvote functionality is offset by someone else's need to not have it.
When taken to absurd extremes it becomes clearer. Suppose you demanded the right to imprison people, because of a deep need to express yourself in such a way, and swore that your neighbourhood would thank you for your decisions. And reasoned that since you're a responsible person, you would never abuse it so others can trust you. Also you hope that since everyone will be granted equal rights, other people will not go off the rails imprisoning everyone.
I think the flaw with the "stifled feelings" here is this: if the playing field is even (as it is with Steem - everyone is subject to the same set of rules), there can be no talk of censorship per se. No one is really getting censored. It's more a hindrance of a missing and perhaps very valuable functionality.
Having said all that, I totally agree with you that Steemit would benefit from a proper downvote option, simply because negative feedback is productive, awakening and valuable. Of course it can be abused, but so can the positive one.
It needs to be figured out well and tested first, but I'm pretty sure that in the long run, it would strengthen the community, filter out a lot of garbage and add to the value and perception of Steem.
So all in all, I agree with the conclusion of your post, but not exactly with the reasoning you provided.
All I hope for is that reasonable behavior (i.e. not going off the rails) will statistically prevail. I suggest to at least give it a try and revert if we conclude that it causes more harm than good.
Tools for giving feedback to the author are these: the upvotes, the comments and the flag. The downvote option is supposed to be give feedback not to the author but only to those who have upvoted: "Hey guys, we've spent too much of our limited funds on this single post or comment".
I might've misunderstood the "flag" somehow, I thought it was intended to mark content that people consider inappropriate, and not provide tangible feedback to the author.
What I had in mind was a system where negative votes offset positive ones. That way you can properly review stuff, a bit like in real life.
Also forgive my bluntness in the comment - I didn't mean this in a condescending way. What occured to me is that having a strong feeling about something that cannot be expressed is not the equivalent of censorship, but a technical limitation. Discussion on implementation of it is another story, this is where the whole grind of blockchain consensus is at.
In that sense the flag provides both functionalities: it warns other readers and gives feedback to the author so that they have a chance to fix the post.
That's indeed a good way to look at it.
You have a good point here. This "technical limitation" does not mute you (as you can still write a comment saying: "I think this post is overpaid") but it makes you powerless even though theoretically you have the power. I don't really know how to call this state.
After doing some introspection I think this is what disturbs me the most: we remove part of our freedom assuming it will have bad consequences before this fear was proven to materialize in real life. For me, limiting our freedom is a last resort, not a preemptive action aimed to yield to our fears.
But the biggest paradox here is that currently you are able to do what is feared by those who oppose the downvote option. You are just invited to do collateral damage to reach your goal.
This logic is completely beyond my understanding: even if we assume that lowering somebody's payout is damaging, they prefer you to do more damage (by using the flag), than give you an option to do less damage (by giving you a downvote tool).
but abusing it is even worse
Fuck off jew