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Re:Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US by pmarreck on Wednesday May 30, 2018 @06:29PM (#17192459)
> To me, reddit seems a great way for a community to reinforce groupthink.

I think this is due to its utterly basic up/downvoting as well as its completely-unenforced TOS which state you should not downvote simply for disagreeing.

When you downvote, you should have to specify a reason (such as "offtopic") and one of the reasons should not remotely be "I disagree"

Re:Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US by retsibsi on Thursday May 31, 2018 @01:49AM (#17194233)
Have any major forums tried a two-axis voting system -- something like Agree/Disagree and Good post/Bad post? I know some people would abuse this and hammer both downvote buttons out of mere disagreement, but I think it would improve the situation.

In most of the subreddits I've seen, it's clear that upvoting for agreement and downvoting for disagreement are both rampant, and I think this is self-perpetuating. When I read a quality post that I disagree with, I would like to stick to the supposed spirit of the voting system and upvote, but I'll think twice about doing so because I know it will be misinterpreted. Giving me a way to explicitly signal one thing and not the other would break this bind.

And even if the system was still abused by 50% of people, it would be possible to offer some interesting filter settings: for example, you could favour posts with a relatively high ratio of Good Post points to Agree points, on the theory that highly agreed-with posts will probably score more Good Post points than they deserve.

Re:Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US by CM30 on Thursday May 31, 2018 @02:45AM (#17194421)
Well there are various forums with post rating/reaction plugins, and those separate them. But I'm not sure any larger sites use such a system, with most others with similar systems having no downvote/disagree (Facebook) or having it not agreement based at all (Slashdot).
Re:Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US by christoph on Wednesday May 30, 2018 @06:53PM (#17192598)
Some of the politics subreddits are the worst places for this. Anything that questions, disagrees or even states facts that go against the common grain, can quickly be downvoted into oblivion.
Re:Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US by retsibsi on Thursday May 31, 2018 @01:56AM (#17194259)
And the other side of that coin is possibly even more annoying: plenty of obviously dumb comments rise to the top, presumably because a lot of people agree with the sentiments they express. I think two-axis voting (see my other comment in this thread) might fail to save subreddits that have already sunk into all-consuming tribalism, but it could help others to avoid that fate.
Re:Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US by criddell on Thursday May 31, 2018 @11:15AM (#17196909)
I wish they would institute a more Slashdot-like moderation system (which is what I think you are describing).

BTW, I think the default downvote reason should be "disagree" because that's the majority use case for it despite what the Reddit designers intended. If a vote was accompanied by more information (offtop, funny, disagree, etc...) then I could tailor my experience better.