There is a pull request which adds a new setting show_downvotes with these settings:
- Show (current behaviour)
- Hide (all downvotes hidden in ui)
- ShowForOthers (only downvotes on other user’s posts are visible)
Importantly the last option would become the new default, which means that users wont be aware that their post or comment was downvoted unless they manually change the setting. This may be good for mental health, but may also make it harder for users to realize that their content is unpopular. What do you think about it?
Agreed 100%.
As someone with some unpopular opinions that I think are backed by good data, I get down votes on a number of my comments. I find that changing the way I present ideas goes a long way toward changing perception. My natural way of presenting things is to give the TLDR at the start and justify it after, but a lot of people don’t read past the TLDR. So when presenting something controversial, I’ll change my tactic to reference something popular and demonstrate some tweaks I’d make to arrive at my idea.
For example, I’m a fan of a Negative Income Tax. Most people don’t know what that is, and I used to start by saying it could replace welfare, which is unpopular (I have good reasons to want that end goal). Instead, I pitch it as UBI, but not going to wealthy people, and that’s a lot more popular, amd then down the thread I can show how it could make welfare more accessible (i.e. replace it) by eliminating the complex application process.
If I didn’t see downvotes, I wouldn’t be able to make that correction.