FYI: The downvote is for preventing abuse of the rewards pool. It is not about indicating approval or disapproval of a post. The downvote is used primarily for spam, plagiarism, identity theft and fraud.
The downvote is perceived by the system as a sign a person is committing fraud. A person with a lot of downvotes receives a red letter by their name.
I see you downvoted someone in disagreement with their post. They gave you a retaliatory downvote.
Since the downvote was designed to prevent fraud, it actually takes money from an account. The site esteem.app shows the rewards for the post above.
So, you downvoted a comment on another thread. You essentially accused this person of fraud. So, he gave you a retaliatory downvote. He has HIVE POWER, you don't.
My upvote gave you $0.022 . His downvote removed $0.015 from the reward. You most likely will not get a payout for the post.
BTW, it is best not to upvote your own posts. Your upvote, with 10 HP, is worth only 0.001 . Various systems analyze posters and people who engage in excessive self voting end up with a negative reputation.
The user I downvoted actually downvoted me first. I also did not downvote in disapproval, the user used communication that was not community friendly. I was not aware that downvotes are reserved for only fraud. I've learned on other socials to use downvotes on the spread of false information, vitriol, and spam, and so that was my mindset. Apologies.
Downvote wars get pretty ugly for sure. There is no right answer for this, as the person you were interacting with has a different opinion. There is no fact-checking or any censorship, so people are free to say whatever they want. The tone i agree was pretty brutal in that poster's voice. Something i've noticed here is that there is seldom any convincing of people who hold opposite belief systems.
HIVE does not do a good job educating people on down votes.
Since this is your second day, I wanted to draw your attention to the way down votes affect rewards.
Since the down vote is weighted by HIVE POWER, one needs to be attentive to the HIVE POWER involved in different accounts before down voting. You have only 10 HP. Your upvotes and downvotes are worth only $0.0001 . It is trivial. Small accounts lose.
esteem.app shows the votes calculated to a hundredth of a penny. I applaud @hivepeople for bringing the votes on your first post back above $0.02.
I think your are right that people should challenge fake news. Unfortunately, since fake news is often driven by politics, there is always a political dimension in the discussions of what is and is not fake news.
While downvoting fake news is good. Downvoting political opinion is considered taboo.
The question of how to handle fake news is interesting.
There is a large community on HIVE interested in STEM education. If I encountered an account that was getting rewards for spreading fake science, I would bring up the issue in a STEM forum. If there was consensus that an account was spreading fake science; the STEM community would have enough HP to stomp the account into dust.
Personally, I would want to build up credibility in the community before trying such a trick. The STEM community could easily stomp me into dust.
The mask issue is too complex. The data shows masks work in some instances and not in other. That means that the issue is political. Adding political opinion to a topic with mixed data is going to end poorly.
I think it is great that you want to actively improve the forum. Accounts in the plankton are in a tough situation where our rewards can be stomped out by a flame war.
BTW, did I mention that the site Hiveblocks shows all transactions related to your account?
https://hiveblocks.com/@ildigrub
Great points
I have to admit, I admire the moxy of a person who downvoted on the first day.
@iamcrazy : I see that you are a brand new account too. It is best to start with an introductory post with the tag #introduceyourself (and four other tags).
It is best to avoid political discussions until you have a feel for the way the forum works. Accounts that start with politics are assumed to be trolls.
Anyway, I am going to assume that you are sane until you prove that you are crazy. I look forward to your first post. This is your HIVE BLOCKS page:
https://hiveblocks.com/@iamcrazy
He'll get a payout since we just upvoted his first post.