@dantheman recently published a great article. You can find it here: The Politics of Negative Voting
As with all of his articles, there's a huge debate immediately. People with questions, answers and suggestions. I love to read peoples thoughts and it truly inspires me.
I often get the feeling, no matter if I personally like what I read or not, that this is exactly what steemit is about and should be about. - This is a social media platform. People interact with each other and I love it!
Let's begin!
People often states that steemit has no censorship.. But what do we actually mean by that?
Censorship:
Censorship is the suppression of free speech, public communication or other information which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media outlets, authorities or other groups or institutions"
So basically, if steemit has no censorship, that would mean that we are allowed to speak our mind. No matter what we talk about..
In reality, downvotes have the power to censor whatever content you can find on steemit. No matter if it's good content or not. A few downvotes by powerful whales like dantheman, ned or berniesanders would probably be enough to make a post vanish, regardless of how many upvotes it is on the article.
I have the utmost respect for all the whales. Especially these three I've mentioned.. But, if these three would "team up" and downvote content "for fun", then they would be able to shatter the dreams for everyone. The top earners would get $200 instead of thousands for their trending posts..
However, I've never seen anyone them doing this "for fun" or just "for the sake of it". - I believe all of the whales are thinking both once and twice before they downvote something. I also believe they think more than once before they upvote something too. In most cases at least.
I agree with some people who've claimed the whales for upvoting "crappy" content, but these whales are humans too. It doesn't matter if I think some articles are pure garbage.. If the whales think it's good or if they just feel like upvoting something for the fun of it.. Then they'll do that. It's their right. The votes are theirs.
People on steemit should be satisfied over the fact that whales are upvoting content to begin with.. They could just power-down and cash out.. The history of steemit would end with that.
I'm rambling on here so I'll get back to the actual "meat" of this article..
Upvotes are essential for an author to grow SP and $-earnings. We all know that. Every author would obviously love to get a bunch of whale-upvotes.. And I'm not different. I would love to see berniesanders upvote something I wrote once again for instance. It happened 1 time so far. dantheman on the other hand, he's been very open-handed and I've got multiple upvotes from him during my month on steemit.
Is it my fault though? - Perhaps.
Perhaps I don't please berniesanders with my posts.. Perhaps dantheman find my content useful or decent enough to give me an upvote. Perhaps dantheman is the only one who reads my post.. Perhaps I could have got upvotes from all the whales if all of them read my posts..
That's a lot of if. If this then that.. However, I've never got a whale-downvote on anything (so far), and for that, I am excited, honored and satisfied. - They could've destroyed my chances totally.. If they wanted to.
With that being said..
I would love to see a change regarding upvotes as I can clearly see that some people upvotes the same authors multiple times per day.. And that ultimately leads to less upvotes for other authors.
On the other hand, the authors who get's multiple upvotes from whales on their content deserves it.. And a change would most likely mean less earnings for them, and that's not good either.
Enough of that..
Personally, I'm extremely careful with downvotes. I think I've never downvoted anything at all so far actually.. And I have my reasons for that.
Even though I'm just a small fish on steemit, I'm still careful. Not that I would be able to destroy someones earnings with the amount of SP I have, but for the simple fact that a downvote is a signal.
I usually get a load of upvotes on my content and I'm truly happy about it. I'm thrilled about it. Most of the upvotes are from people like me. Minnows. I earn $0.01 and so but the act means so much more for me.
I get a bunch of upvotes for content I write. For something I do. Something I create. People like the things I share. People appreciate my contributions.. And that's a fantastic feeling!
A downvote on the other hand..
Would mean the exact opposite in my opinion.. Which is why I'm very careful with them.
If I would get a downvote (I have got a few since I started), that would basically mean that someone doesn't like the things they read.
- Does that automatically mean that they will downvote everyting I do in the future?
- Does it mean that they have something against me as a person?
The answer is no.
It means nothing more than a downvote. They don't like what they read.
However.. Up or downvote.. That's the question.
You and you alone have the power to up or downvote something. You own your vote.
What should you downvote if you think about it..?
- A recipe for a dessert you don't like?
- A photo of a flower because you don't appreciate flowers?
- A video interview because you don't like the subject they talk about?
You could downvote whatever you want, but I personally would never downvote something I truly didn't consider to be scam, fraud or plagiarism. I wouldn't downvote someone's work because I don't agree with the idea, their thoughts or the content. - In fact, I would probably do the exact opposite. I would probably upvote it and then leave a comment where I told the author that I don't agree on this or that, but I encourage them to keep on working, If we encourage each other on steemit, more high quality content will be shared.
The most reasonable thing to do, in my opinion, would be to just forget what you've read and move on. Move on to the next article without a downvote or an upvote.
The downvote is a flag. You flag content. In my book, that's a report. I wouldn't report something because I couldn't agree on it myself.
So, what does this article actually mean..?
- You are responsible for your own actions. Up or Downvote. That's still the question and that's a question you'll have to answer yourself.
I chose to upvote because you have an awesome username.
Haha, thanks man! :D
Great article. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
"I wouldn't downvote someone's work because I don't agree with the idea, their thoughts or the content"
Same here.
That's the thing though. We all are different, so literally anything can happen! - That's also a cool part of steemit. :)
Its amazing when someone can take a step back, question the status quo, question reason itself and re-evaluate everything that we were ###taught since birth.
I would love to see the downvote have options as to reason given. Allows the poster to see why it was flagged. It could also help with some of the after effects.
A downvote by a whale will destroy a post and likely any rep by the author. However if it was divided into reasons.... Not all may have the same impact.... Fraud/Scam affects ranking and post pay. Content disagreeable.... No affect to account or pay.... Etc etc.
Provides a balance I think is lacking because people will, if they haven't already, down vote posts simply because the content is disagreeable. Especially with new users coming. It's hard to ask them to simply abstain from voting either way when both options are given
I only upvoted because you're a 61 like me :)
Haha thanks. 61 and going for 62! ;)
I feel compelled to be very, very careful in downvoting.
dubloon135
Great article and I agree fully with the summary. I Upvoted this. Because I wanted to :)
Thank you, I appreciate it :)
Right on- we ARE responsible for our own votes. And I hope more and more people rspect that.
Its also not good to over vote, as it lowers your power and rewards. Thank you for this well articulated submssion. We all need to learn more about the voting and not just throw it away.
When you downvote a post you could potentially be taking money out of someone's pocket, kind of harsh.
I was just thinking about this downflagging issue. Was wondering if when you click the flag, it could branch out into a multiple question table where you click the reason for downvoting it. Something as simple as being flagged down over a disagreement shouldn't have such a large penalty (maybe a fraction of the voting power should count if it's over a disagreement.) When it comes to blatant plagiarising, evil bots or stealing someones ID though, these sorts of downflags could have full effect and be looked into by an admin before being applied. I dunno, just throwing some ideas out there. It could be the mod who decides the final choice, could be the crowd. hrmmz. Cheers for posting about it anyway, it's good to get people talking about this stuff.
Thanks for your insight, helpful to a noob.
Thank you. I'm glad you liked it!
@trogdor recently did a check for me, and my record shows that "Out of the first 479 votes... 93.7% were upvotes, and 23.4% were used on comments." (source)
So I rarely downvote. When I do, though, it's blatant spam [including tag spam] or plagiarism.