Several people in the community have expressed frustration in regards to the fact that any post that fits the community it's posted to but is slightly out of the normal post type like, for example, being more hardcore rather than softcore, get's a lot of downvotes by people who simply don't like that particular post.
We have also had complaints that particular types of posts as a whole get more downvotes even if they are in the appropriate community and are the normal type of post for a community. This especially appears to be happening to male content.
Additionally we are seeing posts with more downvotes than a community has subscribers, meaning people are downvoting content they don't even want to see in the first place.
We understand some may not like some content of a particular post or community, but downvoting posts discourages these posters who are actually passionate/interested in the topic of the community from posting again. Additionally, when posts are downvoted like that it can bury them in our instance and especially in other instances, preventing them from being viewed by others almost at all.
After some discussion amongst the moderators and admins,because of the reasons above, we've decided to disable downvotes at least for the time being.
What do I do if I dislike a post?
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We recommend those who would normally downvote a post they don't like just, instead, block the user who created the post, or, if the community is a topic you dislike, block the community. That way, you no longer see those posts, but don't effect those posts' visibility to other members of the community and instance.
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Additionally, you can view your "Subscribed" feed instead of "Local" so that you only see posts from the communities you are subscribed to.
What do I do if a post doesn't fit the community it's posted in or is spam?
- Please report the post, either the mods of the community or an instance admin will remove the post if necessary, as soon as possible. We have admins and mods online almost around the clock, so these types of posts should be removed quickly.
Potential future post filtering on lemmy:
- In the future it appears that lemmy may implement a tagging system similar to flairs on reddit. This request has piqued the interest of the lemmy devs, so keep an eye out sometime in the (maybe not so near) future for the implementation of that feature.
As @yay@lemmynsfw.com has said in the comments:
Downvotes should be used for posts you don’t like in your area of interest, and not for niche communities you don’t like.
When the RFC mentioned in the post is developed, we will be able to have a more refined home page, this way we can enable downvotes.
But for now, please block users/communities as it supposed to be.
Please put any comments questions and concerns in the comments below, we are of course always open to community thoughts and feedback, and want to work with you to keep this instance an enjoyable and entertaining place to post and browse.
Blocking is only one way here as well. If you block a user then their comments and posts will no longer appear for you. If there is a comment by the blocked user in a conversation it shows up as 'There is no record of this comment' the same as if it was removed by mod action or if it's the end of the comment chain you just can't expand it (At least on Jerboa). Blocked communities don't show in your feed and won't show up in a search if you try to manually go to it either.
Your own comments and posts will still show to the blocked user however.
Bummers - that what I thought... Reddit finally did something right when they made blocking both ways so that people you have blocked can't see you.
I actually prefer the one-way ban personally, but I'm not a poster generally. I would imagine that the people who are enough of a problem to require the two-way ban would just ban-evade with another account anyway.
Nah if i block someone, they can fuck right off. It means i dont wanna engage anymore and i dont want them to have the opportunity to comment and ruin the vibe in my comment section either. Or follow me around and downvote everything im doing.
Its my effort, my content and i wanna be able to disinvite them fully. They can go spew their negative bullshit somewhere else.
I had a few who indeed made other accounts to come back and annoy me again. Blocked those accounts too. Wake a mole and all. They give up after a while. And a new post wont trigger them to start the harrasment again cause they cant seeeeee them.
Can you put a community on private here?
I'm not sure about private communities, but maybe someone else can chime in. I know you can disable comments and posts at the very least.
I understand where you're coming from with your opinion and I don't think it's incorrect in any way, but I still personally disagree. A conversation requires two people and if you block off one end it's no longer that. Just like you mention, they will tired eventually and move on. I'm not sure if Lemmy allows blocked users to comment on posts by users they've been blocked by actually though. I would hope not at least because that is a situation I absolutely do not think should be allowed.
Hey, we can def respectfully disagree on this. And if its about sfw content i kinda get the reasoning behind it. But not for nsfw content, oc posters deal with alot of bs and truly unstable people at times. When there isnt a meaningfull discours possible in the first place, when users just wanna get a rise out of them for giggles. I think being able to two way block is a relief.
I've posted my own OC before and I understand completely how fucking weird and aggressive people can be. I don't want to go into details because this isn't the place for it but on top of being kink-friendly I have a body type that invites some of the more depraved people. Enough so that I'm really not interested in posting myself any longer.
I just don't want to see this place turn into the same version of walled gardens that Reddit ended up as. We've interacted enough at this point where I think you have a sense of my personality and even I've been banned and blocked for some very innocuous comments in the past when the reality is that if I had been told I crossed a line I would have apologized. I know that obviously everyone isn't as reasonable or understanding, but just like with the conversation with downvotes, you can't force a user to use a tool appropriately and there will always be bad actors on both sides. I think the one-way communication block allows for the least exploitation while still accomplishing the goal.