I think we definitely could, though it might not be easy. If the general tone of the conversation was very friendly, I imagine the atmosphere would be such that down-votes felt more like useful information and less like attacks. I guess I’ve so far felt that I’ve tried to contribute information when it’s been asked for, and found that all my comments had a uniform amount of up-voting and down-voting, such that I didn’t get much information from the down-voting at all, and it felt more as if at least one person just disliked that I was having the conversation / me (although I guess it could equally have been that different people each disagreed with different things I was saying). One way to fix this would be if people were very selective in their down-voting, targetting individual things said.
I should add—I’m not used to forums. I imagine down-voting is crucial when volume is high. But from my outsider perspective, it feels like a way to anonymously attack other people.
I think we definitely could, though it might not be easy. If the general tone of the conversation was very friendly, I imagine the atmosphere would be such that down-votes felt more like useful information and less like attacks. I guess I’ve so far felt that I’ve tried to contribute information when it’s been asked for, and found that all my comments had a uniform amount of up-voting and down-voting, such that I didn’t get much information from the down-voting at all, and it felt more as if at least one person just disliked that I was having the conversation / me (although I guess it could equally have been that different people each disagreed with different things I was saying). One way to fix this would be if people were very selective in their down-voting, targetting individual things said. I should add—I’m not used to forums. I imagine down-voting is crucial when volume is high. But from my outsider perspective, it feels like a way to anonymously attack other people.