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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   7069 thread views

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I don't know if there's an existing discussion for it, but I want to ask if we can please remove voting entirely. My frustration with this system is immense, as it allows people to engage in blatantly partisan ways with other people - downvoting due to perceived disagreement. It bothers me when I see someone make an argument that is downvoted and not responded to. I'm not saying we have to respond to everyone, but you shouldn't be downvoting over disagreement, only if you think the post violates the rules.

I kind of sympathize, but for every person who hates the voting buttons there's another who wants more visible voting and even more elaborate ways to vote and track voting.

You're right that votes aren't supposed to be "I agree/I disagree" buttons, but that's just the way it usually works because people are lazy.

for every person who hates the voting buttons there's another who wants more visible voting and even more elaborate ways to vote and track voting.

Really? I'm fascinated by this argument. I understand that if you implement the voting system, then you want lots of ways to vote and visibility into voting. But I can't imagine why someone wants to vote in this context.

I'm a strong advocate for votes in comment systems. I think they provide a clear and fast way to gauge both local sympathies and perception of quality, and they provide feedback that comments cannot. Excellent posts often by their nature discourage responses, because they provide little to disagree with, while drawing widespread voting support. Being able to distinguish "this take is locally controversial and gets mixed votes" versus "this take inspires a lot of pushback but is overall popular" is useful. Being able to signal quickly that you liked something without needing to take up space with a comment is useful. I do very much like the all-votes-are-public aspect from rdrama, but that might be too Dramatic to include here. Regardless, I strongly prefer spending time in spaces with voting systems to ones without.

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