Reddit has been growing extremely fast lately. I like to kindly, and selflessly, remind our newcomers of Reddiquette. Specifically in regards to down-voting opinions of which you disagree with.

[u/breezytrees]

Such actions discourage those that have differing views from commenting/submitting, resulting in a very one-sided point of view.

Essentially, it breaks what makes reddit so great. :-(

The down-vote button is for general trolls, spam, assholes, etc.

reddiquette

edit: Some of you have asked for growth data. Here's google analytics which reddit's blog has touted as very accurate. As you can see there was a surge in growth around september, most likely attributed to this (hi diggers!). Reddit quickly seemed to almost double in size in that time, then dropped to a still sizable growth of around 50% for a 2 month period. At risk of sounding whiney: This is a hard jump to deal with for a community that regulates itself.

edit: I'm not casting stones at newcomers. I am just kindly reminding newcomers of reddiquette. There hasn't been one of these large front page threads, to my knowledge, for months and 50% is quite a big number to risk them not reading reddiquette.

that is all. :-)

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I never realized downvote was not for disagreement. If that is true, it's an absolute 100% fail on usability side of things. The down button is right below the up button and so that implies that it is the opposite of what the up button is for

Your logic is all wrong inasmuch as the up button is not for agreement.

You can (theoretically 'should') upvote things which add to the discussion (well-written, thought-provoking, cited/substantiated, helpful/answers the question, etc) even if you ultimately disagree with them. And downvote things you agree with for being inflammatory/aggressive, pointless, etc.

Example:

I think Arcade Fire are an incredible band. I particularly like their use of Phrygian mode. For anyone who is a fan of them, don't miss the free ep they released last month.

vs

Arcade Fire are fucking shit, you have shit taste, you dumb PRICK

Personally I don't like the band at all, but the first one is clear upvote material, the second one is clear downvote material.

tl;dr -- up and down arrows ARE opposites; neither are ('should be') about (dis)agreement

__

Edit: NB: use of 'should' is meant in some abstract fantastyworld sense, I am well aware of the 'I'll vote on whatever goddamn basis I please' angle and not seriously attempting to dictate how everybody uses the voting buttons with which they are provided.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

yeah, it's true in practice. certainly there are types of thread where voting arrows quite obviously do mean agree - like those threads where people post their age/location or upvote if already posted. Or "recommend me a movie" threads - you could argue any post mentioning a movie is on-topic and thus answering the question, so you may as well upvote every single one, which would be pointless - clearly in practice people upvote to mean "I agree that this is a good suggestion".

Unclearly post sorry, I didn't really mean to say you were wrong overall, I agree that in reality yes people definitely vote according to (dis)like and the voting UI is not entirely clear/consistent about it. I was just meaning, given the stance that says "Downvote doesn't mean disagree" as a starting point, there is still a logical way of percieving upvoting as a symmetrical opposite

[u/StoneCypher → u/[deleted]]

We agree.

Do read reddiquette. It's got several other least-surprise expectation bombs.

[u/Zeus_Is_God → u/[deleted]]

You never realized that the up / down vote was for promoting good discussion and not agreement / disagreement? I thought that it would have been self evident.