<story><title>Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2021/07/21/twitter-tests-reddit-style-upvote-and-downvote-buttons/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>heurisko</author><text>The problem is, is supposedly, upvote = adds to the conversation, downvote = detracts from conversation.&lt;p&gt;In reality, upvote = I agree, downvote = I disagree.&lt;p&gt;However I don&amp;#x27;t think anything can save twitter from being a toxic platform.&lt;p&gt;What makes it especially toxic, I think, is its lack of separation of communities.&lt;p&gt;Reddit is toxic sometimes, but at least there is some separation: if you just want to talk about knitting, you can avoid the people talking about politics.&lt;p&gt;I think it&amp;#x27;s important to be able to have controversial debates in real life, as body language and audience response seems to keep people from being truly awful.&lt;p&gt;The Quakers have an interesting history of trying to facilitate such controversial debates. They have been involved in some contemporary ones too.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.quakersintheworld.org&amp;#x2F;quakers-in-action&amp;#x2F;210&amp;#x2F;International-Mediation-and-Conciliation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.quakersintheworld.org&amp;#x2F;quakers-in-action&amp;#x2F;210&amp;#x2F;Inte...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s concerning to me, how much of real life discussion we have lost due to the pandemic.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>captainmuon</author><text>Up&amp;#x2F;downvotes always have multiple conflicting dimensions.&lt;p&gt;- The post is factually right &amp;#x2F; wrong
- Confirms to the site rules &amp;#x2F; breaks the rules
- I agree &amp;#x2F; disagree
- I want to promote &amp;#x2F; bury this post
- Reward poster with XP &amp;#x2F; punish&lt;p&gt;I am usually very pragmatic and upvote a post when I want other people to read it (because I want to see the discussion, or because I want to spread the idea). I also upvote to reward the poster.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t tend to downvote factually wrong posts when they are still interesting, because that limits the chance they get good discussion, and because I don&amp;#x27;t want to punish somebody for Being Wrong On The Internet. I do downvote positions that I find  &lt;i&gt;bad&lt;/i&gt; in order to reduce their reach.&lt;p&gt;It would be probably possible to have a site that implements two dimensions as a cross (maybe only for users with a certain XP) although the UX might not be to great. Maybe it is a good idea to have &amp;quot;promote&amp;#x2F;bury&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;reward&amp;quot; buttons?</text></comment>
<story><title>Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2021/07/21/twitter-tests-reddit-style-upvote-and-downvote-buttons/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>heurisko</author><text>The problem is, is supposedly, upvote = adds to the conversation, downvote = detracts from conversation.&lt;p&gt;In reality, upvote = I agree, downvote = I disagree.&lt;p&gt;However I don&amp;#x27;t think anything can save twitter from being a toxic platform.&lt;p&gt;What makes it especially toxic, I think, is its lack of separation of communities.&lt;p&gt;Reddit is toxic sometimes, but at least there is some separation: if you just want to talk about knitting, you can avoid the people talking about politics.&lt;p&gt;I think it&amp;#x27;s important to be able to have controversial debates in real life, as body language and audience response seems to keep people from being truly awful.&lt;p&gt;The Quakers have an interesting history of trying to facilitate such controversial debates. They have been involved in some contemporary ones too.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.quakersintheworld.org&amp;#x2F;quakers-in-action&amp;#x2F;210&amp;#x2F;International-Mediation-and-Conciliation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.quakersintheworld.org&amp;#x2F;quakers-in-action&amp;#x2F;210&amp;#x2F;Inte...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s concerning to me, how much of real life discussion we have lost due to the pandemic.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>BuyMyBitcoins</author><text>&amp;gt;”if you just want to talk about knitting, you can avoid the people talking about politics.”&lt;p&gt;I don’t find this to be the case at all. The amount of politics tolerated in each subreddit is almost entirely dependent on the personalities of the mods who run it. And for whatever reason, most Reddit mods tend to be activist friendly or at least look the other way when it comes to obvious soapbox accounts breaking the rules.&lt;p&gt;In my experience most subreddits choose to flair political posts rather than prohibit them.</text></comment>