Downvotes suck. I get it, they are made up internet points coming from strangers (or bots) that you know nothing about, and you shouldn’t let that get you down. Still, putting in a few minutes of effort to share your opinion and engage with the community just to see a downvote is disheartening.
Based on the patterns of downvotes I see on a post, it seems like there is usually one or two people downvoting everything they wouldn’t personally say themselves. Extrapolating from this, I presume there is a population of users that contribute more downvotes than anything.
Personally, I don’t think the platform should allow any user to spend more time tearing things down than building other things up. Only allowing downvotes after so many upvotes would help stop trolls and could help generate more engagement via upvotes.
Edit:
The upvote/downvote count would be a global count including posts and comments, not a post specific count. This solution does not prevent downvoting, it merely adds friction to those who predominantly leave negative feedback by ensuring their positive feedback elsewhere. Sure, some would go on to upvote unsavory things, but others would attempt to further engage with their interests, and some would simply lurk.
If any good faith user approached the limitation, they would likely be better served by curating their feed.
I mean there is a small part of me that feels rejected when I see downvotes. Another small part that is paranoid that someone is following me and downvoting me just out of spite. And the remainder uses it as an opportunity to reflect on what I said to see if either I could have worded it better or to rethink my position on whatever it was I wrote.
My only complaint is that people (myself included, I’ll admit) don’t always leave a comment to why they downvoted. I get it. The culture isn’t always conducive to a good faith discussion/disagreement. But it should be.
People should be safe to disagree with me. In fact, let me put it out there right now:
I will never put you down for coming at me with a good faith disagreement of opinions about anything I say.
I only downvote spam, hate, factually incorrect, and other nonconstructive content. It’s my personal opinion that the down vote is to be reserved for content that ought to be removed from the platform. A post showing effort and Goodwill is always worth the vote to me.
I would hope that moderators would police spam voting. The problem is sure to get worse in the future.
Why should you change your opinion just because people disagree? Do you trust randos on lemmy who are likely tankie trolls more than yourself to form an opinion?
Because I like to consider myself open-minded and amenable to the idea that I do not know everything, and I can be wrong on occasion. I also like to hear people out and if possible, learn something I didn’t know. Do I always change my mind? No. But if someone gives me good enough reason, I will likely look up their side of things and if necessary, reform my opinion based on new facts.