The only Lemmy community I’m aware of that has actually removed downvotes is hexbear - because they were tired of having their pro-Maoist rhetoric downvoted to oblivion by sane people. Hexbear is not a healthy place.
I don’t have much experience with that community, but from the little I’ve seen, agreed. It’s not good.
A good forum design will only get you so far, the rest is up to the moderators. If you let bad actors in, it doesn’t matter how you designed your forum, they will poison the well and drive other people out.
The best communities I’ve been in are in independent old-style forums. One of them is Tildes. Most of these don’t feature downvotes (or upvotes for that matter) and are honestly the better places to have discussions IMO.
In my experience, that’s not what happens
The only Lemmy community I’m aware of that has actually removed downvotes is hexbear - because they were tired of having their pro-Maoist rhetoric downvoted to oblivion by sane people. Hexbear is not a healthy place.
I don’t have much experience with that community, but from the little I’ve seen, agreed. It’s not good.
A good forum design will only get you so far, the rest is up to the moderators. If you let bad actors in, it doesn’t matter how you designed your forum, they will poison the well and drive other people out.
The best communities I’ve been in are in independent old-style forums. One of them is Tildes. Most of these don’t feature downvotes (or upvotes for that matter) and are honestly the better places to have discussions IMO.