This was a question posed to me earlier, and although it's only been a few weeks since the change, I guess it's worth a look.....
On the 2nd May 2019, Steemit Inc relabeled flags as downvotes and changed the icon from a red flag to a downvote button which now sits next to, you guessed it, the upvote button.
As with any change, there are differing opinions but for what it's worth, I agree with this one from both a usability and marketing perspective. Moving the button and making it look like the opposite of the upvote button is logical, and bringing the functionality into the line of sight (away from the naughty corner) may help reduce the stigma around feature, or not.
More or less?
Only 23 days have passed since the change, and so the data might not tell too much, but this is how all downvotes since the first of April look:
Not a really a noticeable change there but May looks lower on average.
What if we remove the top 15 downvoters?
'spaminator','mack-bot','realcleaner','lyndsayblowes','cheetah','camillesteemer','dumb-as-an-ox','trollshunter','shit-posts','scruffyjunkies','iflagtrash','abusereports','steemcleaners','plentyofphish','flags4pedos'
Hmm, downvotes are on a downtrend, but this looks to have been the case since mid-April.
The next two charts relate to the number of accounts doing the downvoting each day, and the number of unique accounts being downvoted each day.
Again, the average is lower for May than April.
Although some interesting spikes here as on a couple of days in the past week or so, over 1000 unique users have received a downvote. I would guess that these votes are scripted following the uncovering of a comment/spam farm or two.
This last piece of data looks at the downvotes as a percentage of the total votes cast during the timeframe used in the above charts.
| Time period | Percentage of Downvotes |
|---|---|
| 1st April - 24th May | 0.00556% |
| 1st April - 1st May | 0.00564% |
| 2nd May - 24th May | 0.00546% |
We need 4 decimal points before any changes can be seen, such is the low number of downvotes compared to the total votes cast on any given day.
And yes, as a percentage, there have been fewer downvotes since the 2nd April.
Need more incentive?
It seems that thus far, relabeling and moving the button has not encouraged more downvoting.
Perhaps what is being discussed on the post linked below will have more of an impact?
https://steemit.com/steem/@vandeberg/downvote-pool-deep-dive
Cheers
Asher
0.005% Jesus that is low.
The suggestion of free downvotes now makes a little more sense!
Posted using Partiko Android
Ironically, I reveive my first big dowvote in months on my comment on the post you mention.
I knew I had to turn around the moment I saw it was a post about downvoting, but noooh... I was stupid enough to give my opinion.
You'd think I'd know by now that there are just topics you should stay away from. Good, old censorship makes sure that what people see is people sharing the same opinion - after all, you're punished if you have a different one.
The blockchain... uncensord and freedom of speech... what a joke :0(
I will get to this later, but I think the renaming and positioning wasn't to encourage more downvotes but rather to normalize the convention. I think the suggestion for discounted downvotes is what is needed for an increase.
Thanks for the analysis.
The general sentiment about downvotes is still negative.
https://steemit.com/steem/@therealwolf/it-s-okay-to-downvote
Once we got discounted downvotes and people start using them more, I hope others will get used to it.
Yes fair enough, 'normalize the convention' :)
Agreed. How much for 'free' though?
I am not sure but I would say that 10-20% would be a pretty good indicator of how it performs in the wild.
I'm gonna downvote this comment just for the hell of it.
:D What I have seen happen when users do this is......
I will always call it a flag and I'm too powerless to use them..
Posted using Partiko Android
If combined with the reward curve changes proposed recently, your downvote will have more of an impact, the higher the content is valued.
Yes, this seems like the only aspect of the eic that can only improve the ecosystem. The other two points only time will tell, but I can't imagine things getting much worse than they are presently.. Based on polling it looks to be happening, almost every top witness is on board.
Let me crowbar in here: the aspect of a changed reward curve makes sense - on it's own. The rest... not so much
Posted using Partiko Android
Even tho I like the downvote presentation, where are the flags represented? As someone with lots of years in science and working with big data files, and representing results - if you are comparing two things you need to show them.
In this example, you could overlap flags from Feb and March to overlap with DW from April and May.
And... I am pretty sure that everyone on steem knew about the flags even before changing the name to downvote - yes, it took me everytime half a minute to find it, but I knew I could find it, if I needed/wanted it to use.
Cheers
Shouldn't you be measuring flags per total posts? Rather than an absolute number? That way, if the total number of posts go down, then the total flags go down as well... Due to lower total usage?
It should be renamed 'click here for free crypto' or 'register for airdrop' and it should give a satisfying level up PING!
Yes, perhaps :)
I'm not really with it today, family stuff is occupying my mind.
No problem, looking forward to seeing your candidate announcement for Prime Minister. Or whatever it is you are up to...
Who wouldn't trust a Prime Ministerial candidate called 'abh12345'...?
He has Rep 74, I would trust him! Focus on the rep and hammer it with a big marketing campaign!
He can count! He mostly knows his alphabet! He's English or similar! Vote for XXXNNNNN!
Definitely has my 5000 votes!
So, why are we having that downvote pool discussion again?
Posted using Partiko Android
Check the link, it seems it could well happen at some point...
Oh! I have read that. And I disagree.
Don't want to annoy you personally. Thought your analysis is another argument as yo why the downvote discussion is not the most important thing at the moment.
Just check who is among the top downvoters you excluded. Are these the accounts we want to encourage?
Posted using Partiko Android
Well actually, my sick Grandad is what's really on my mind at present but I don't feel like writing about that today. So a brief analysis piece as I was tagged in the comments of the post linked will suit me fine today.
All in all, there is not a lot of owned SP there - most of it is Steemit Incs delegations.
realcleaner and abusereports are owned by whales with a big sense of humour :)
First: I wishing your grandfather the best.
Second: we know who the good guys are. My worry is that the new changes will mainly be abused by toxic accounts.
Posted using Partiko Android
Thank you.
I don't think the situation can get worse. For the most part, average users producing reasonable content are not flagged.
There is however a constant stream of comment farming, content indifferent voting, and plagiarism.
Anecdotally, I’ve had several fat finger almost accidentally downvoting incidents since the two buttons are right next to each other.
There must have been a couple of accidents since the switch!
.
Yup, so it's not that people couldn't find the button before :)
I didn't drill down, might do at some point, but my guess is a vote farm bust or some 'flag war' activities.
The vast majority of users will never use them, and their primary use case will still be the same. Bullying and fighting primarily and to a much lesser extent to combat abuse.
The psychology behind it is different. I'm glad the data is available so I can continue to be proven right.
Bluntly, 'most peoples' vote doesn't account for much, up or down at present and I feel this is more about coaxing larger votes away from self and out into the open. The 'free' flags should be used by anyone who cares for the future of this place. There are cheaters and scammers in our ranks they are taking 'someones money'.
Sorry to hear that your Granddad is sick dude! Wishing him a super speedy recovery!! This is easily my least favourite part about living in a different country from the rest of the fam.
I made my first one ever today! Still feel guilty about it because a comment got downvoted from someone who just posted a picture with a sentence... Maybe not a good reason but I gave it a try!
Posted using Partiko iOS
Sweet sexy downvotes just gathering dust. Must change it up!! ;0)
I think so. Are you supping on those plums yet good sir?
Nah, chasing two demented children around and hoping they get sleepy soon!! Then the plums are coming!! :0)
Plums means testicles right?
It does!!!
Or beer of the plum variety ;0)
So many choices of things to sup...
Hehe, yes indeedy!!
Yesterday I saw a couple of religious posts downvoted by a bot, somebody was taking the time to give them an upvote so they would be visible. So no, I don't think downvotes are of any use, while I have this feeling that there must be a creator somewhere I am definitely not a fan of religion or of reading what other people think about it, but I do think they have all the right to write about what they believe in, downvoting is just taking away their right to do so, and then the person who is upvoting could give that uvote to a more deserving post but doesn't because he thinks the post deserves to be seen even if he wouldn't have voted for it otherwise, have you thought about that?
As for the stats of the downvote, what was the activity level, more or less than the previous month? Yes, I know the percentage went slightly down, but if less people are engaging it means that probably most of the people who are posting are people who don't get downvoted.
It is, the two posts I am talking about were hidden because of a downvote. Why, because somebody doesn't like religious content? So yes, the people who posted these two articles were denied the right to be seen because somebody doesn't like that kind of content.
You don't need to downvote something to the point that it is hidden (below zero). Just make a smaller downvote. If it is earning a reward of $ 50 and you think it is not worth more than a dollar you can easily knock the reward down a few dollars or a few cents or whatever without even coming close to hiding it.
IMO the vast majority of downvotes should not to the point of hiding anything or downvoting content with little or no rewards (which is more likely to hide it) but rather reducing the excessive rewards of milkers from pulling too much out of the reward pool and thereby preventing others from earning anything.
But that is what happens, the two posts I talk about were Christian posts, OK I am agnostic so I really shouldn't care, but if the only reason for downvoting them was that they are against the downvoter's ideals or beliefs (in this case I don't know if that applies as the downvoter is a well known bot) then you can obviously see the problem with downvoting.
And yet I have seen these days a lot of posts by one person who upvotes himself, is posting the same thing ten times, and none of you downvoting gurus who swear by downvoting have seen the need to downvote this. Are you guys afraid of downvoting him, or is it just cool to downvote someone when he can't hit back? See, I am against downvoting but if it has to be done do it fairly and do it completely don't be afraid of the consequences.
I've downvoted probably more than almost anyone else on the entire platform so don't look at me when it comes to people not downvoting.
Probably a good part of the problem is that downvotes are so extraordinarily rare (I had previously heard 0.01% to 0.1% but here we are seeing 0.005% which is really negligible) which turns every single downvote into some sort of man-bites-dog type of story.
If we're able to get downvotes used more frequently by more people then more of them will be about pushing back against reward milking, as is intended.
Oh, come on, you understood what I was trying to say (English isn't my native language). And yes you can see them but who is going to open an article that is nearly faded out, this means it was downvoted, so naturally you think it is plagiarism, hate or some other nasty thing so that is one article that gets no eyes on it after the downvote.
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That's amazing... but has he recieved 14000 downvotes too? The people want to know...
Hmm... shall we create a new badge to motivate people to get downvotes? 😆
100,000,000%!
Although some will have already collected ALL the not-yet-invented badges already...
528 and counting :D
Haha, that's a fair haul.. where did you find that stat? I'm worried my own will be embarrassingly small.
12 for you :D
SO.
EMBARRASSING!
Part of the issue is apps like Partiko haven’t implemented a downvote system like SteemIt yet so I’m guessing a non trivial amount of people aren’t even seeing the option.
Posted using Partiko iOS
You got a 26.31% upvote from @ocdb courtesy of @abh12345! :)
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the flag wars will still continue hahah
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Cool stuff ! I'm glad you took the time to present numbers, I wanted to know but wasn't ready to put in the effort :p
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Interesting how the same bad actor is related to such a huge portion of the down-voting. The current upvoting pattern of those same accounts is also very interesting these days. It seems like we have the same issue here as in the real world (fiat world) - just a few people (one person) making things looks worse than they are.
Happy to be wrong each day, that usually means I've tried something new and ballsed it up :)