It has been almost a year since we disabled downvotes on HC. @Alice@hilariouschaos.com and I are interested to check in and read the room.
In short, downvotes affect how content is displayed here, and certain types of content gets reliably downvoted on Lemmy. For a comparison, look at:
https://hilariouschaos.com/c/Conservatives vs https://lemmy.world/c/Conservatives@hilariouschaos.com
Downvotes are often not used in good faith, and content will be buried at the bottom based on them. However, they are also a valid form of expression and I doubt anyone here is fragile enough to be affected by them.
What are your thoughts?
I like it the way it is. I don’t view or think about voting like I did before coming here. I just post as I please without worry or concern there.
Also noticed that it affects others and I don’t have an automatic feel of a comment based on how it’s been voted upon and I just view comments as is without any automatic assumptions.