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this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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The main issue is this:
Say 1,000 people are arguing over an issue with 10 different sides, on a platform where you can upvote as many comments as you want. 250 people agree with one side, and the other nine sides have no more than 150 people in agreement. In this case, the comment arguing this side would have 250 points.
Now, in a system without downvotes, this would rise to the top. However, say all 750 other people disagree with the side and can downvote it. In this case it would have -500 points. Let's also say that the 250 people in agreement with this point also downvote all the other comments that disagree with them (in true Reddit fashion). The second most popular opinion would be sitting at -100 points. Basically, downvotes allow massively unpopular opinions to be shoved to the bottom.
Bots and brigading are significant problems that need attention on platforms such as these, but removing downvotes isn't the answer.
That presumes downvotes represent honest disagreement, which we both know and I have proven they don't.
Because now one asshole with 500 different alts across the fediverse can take any post he wants and massively downvote it, enforcing consequential action against opinions he doesn't like, and no one is the wiser.
That's why we deal with the one having 250 upvotes, and give 500 upvotes to whoever disagrees with it, letting that opinion rise to the top instead.
Again, this is why one account per person is the most important part of this system functioning. Bots, brigading, alts, etc. all undermine the way the system should work. In fact, they undermine an upvotes-only system too, since one person with 5,000 bot accounts can make anything look popular.
Which is not possible because you can't guarantee one account per person, anyone can make as many alts as they want, specifically on other servers that can then inundate a post on a target one. That's why it's so problematic.
In retrospect, federation itself is a terrible idea the way it's been implemented. I don't think the developers took the fact that humans are inherently evil into account.
This also is true. 🤔 Allowing people to vote on other people's comments in general is so deeply problematic.