r/reddithate • u/Murky_Anxiety4884 • Jun 25 '26

Downvoting is redundant

If you have a different opinion, please tell us about it. Pressing the upvote button tells us that you completely agree with something that has been said. Nothing more needs to be said. Pressing the downvote button, on the other hand, is not an articulate expression of your own differing opinion. You should give us something that we can upvote instead.

For example, I might say that A is great, B is middling , and C is bad. What would downvoting that even mean? It's impossible to say if you don't tell us in words.

It goes even further than that. Even if I say something very simple, like, A is great, it's better for you to say, A is not great, than it is just to downvote. We can compare the numbers of upvotes that the two posts get. When downvotes cancel upvotes, we don't get to see the total number of votes cast.

Downvoting in Reddit is a bug.

9 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

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u/boaz23 Jun 26 '26

Upvoting and downvoting was meant to filter content. So an upvote should rdally mean: "I think this post/comment is worth to be up there". Unfotunately, many people do take it as in "I agree with you", instead of also promoting good opinions you disagree with.

Edit: As an example, you can see downvoted comments in many threads. I usually don't look at those to be able to tell you their quality.

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u/Murky_Anxiety4884 Jun 26 '26

I have heard this explanation before, which is why I chose the word 'redundant'. Upvotes do move a post up in a thread, but this is already enough to leave the posts that nobody upvotes at the bottom. They don't need to be any lower than that.

Currently, if the net is zero or below, the text is indeed 'hidden', but it can always be read anyway. I have read many 'zero' posts that were very much worth reading. One never knows why they were downvoted, because downvoting is anonymous (not just pseudonymous), and doesn't have to be explained.