I hate feeling salty. It’s like having sand in the crack of your ass, or a thorn in your sock that you just can’t see but you know for shit-sure it’s there. Feeling salty is a situation which annoys me until I feel compelled to act in order to desalinate myself. Well, as you can see, it’s desalination time…

To downvote or not to downvote

The debate over downvoting is one that has come and gone. Downvoting is here to stay and whether you agree with it or not, it is a point that is asinine to make. However, the downvote is an unpolished turd, imo. And if I’m forced to look at this turd on a daily basis, it would be nice if it wore a 3-piece suit and spoke the queens. As it stands, and this is the part where the proverbial sand enters the crack of my arse, the downvote is a tracksuit wearing chav that swaggers around with its hand down the front of its pants giving no consideration for anyone but it’s oh-so-important-self. He’s not necessarily causing any serious harm but just the sight of him makes me want to scoop out my brain in an act of survival and hurl it as far away from the situation as possible.

In reality I don’t have a brain worth saving and more importantly it really doesn’t need to come to this, because this offensive sight isn’t so offensive after all. Strip away the tracksuit and remove the hand from the crotch, and what we’re left with is a regular person trying to express themselves. Nothing wrong with that. We should all be allowed to express ourselves and make our opinions heard. What we shouldn’t be able to do is bully people out of the community through loutish and selfish actions.

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Away from my weird analogy and back to the point I want to make, I would just like to polish up the current state of the downvote. I’m not asking for much and if you hear me out you might understand why I’m feeling so salty about the status quo.

The reason behind a downvote is absolutely a subjective one. From the perspective of the downvoter the downvote is completely necessary. But on the other hand, I doubt there have been many occasions where the downvoted agreed completely, or at all, with the response to his/her post. We must also remember that with a downvote there often comes the inevitable downvote trail which compounds the misery (and, more often than not, confusion) of the original downvote.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not here to play big brother in Hive’s playground. You’re all quite capable to fend for yourselves. However, what I would like to see happen is slight change in the way folk DV in order to allow others to understand why a post has been hit with a DV (in some cases it would allow us to understand why an account is being continually downvoted).

I think it would benefit everyone if it were mandatory to add a comment when applying a DV. Obviously, a comment would allow the person being downvoted to understand why. A comment would also allow those passing by an afflicted post to know why this has happened. It’s more often than not that I see a post with a trail of DVs attached to it but after looking in the comments section I’m non the wiser as to why? This may not seem important to some but there was an instance to other day where a simple comment from the original downvoter would have been very helpful.

Take @andrianna for example. I passed by her post and see what appears to be a very talented artist sharing her work with the Hive community. I want to upvote this post but due to the DV attached I’m concerned I could be upvoting someone who has been found to be plagiarising, as can easily be the case where art is concerned.
Plagiarism is a bird poo on the shoulder of Hive and I will certainly not encourage or reward it with my vote. With a post like this, I can assume that plagiarism is the only logical answer for the DV, but how am I to know for sure? To leave it to assumption is irresponsible on the part of the downvoter and potentially quite damaging to @andrianna’s reputation if it is to be discovered that she has done nothing wrong and is just on the receiving end of another bullying campaign (yes, this does happen, as you will find out soon). So how do I know for sure that plagiarism is the reason for the DV? Other than going on a Dick Tracy mission I have no way to find out. Is this really how it should be? Wouldn’t it be easier for everyone if situations like this were clarified by a simple comment? Seems quite reasonable to me and for what’s a stake quite appropriate too. Because there are occasions where this downvoting can get a little bit out of hand and have terrible consequences…

Take the case of @goddesseva for example. This is a perfect case for the problem with this sniper-like downvoting.

In this example we have an enthusiastic, motivated and uplifting content provider who made what was arguably an honest mistake in ONE of her posts.

It all began way back in November, 2022, when @goddesseva used an image without adding a source to it. On this occasion @hivewatchers gave her a DV and diligently added a comment to explain why. Naughty little @goddesseva, but she lived and learned like we all have done. All returned to normal until January 2023 when for no apparent reason @goddesseva received a hefty DV from @adm and @freebornsociety (corrected. The DV in question from freebornsociety was not so hefty after all). Following on from this she received a series of unexplained and seemingly unwarranted DVs, only this time with @azircon joining the others in the snipers tower. Like many of the men in @goddesseva’ life, this trio of mysterious downvoters didn’t last long. However, not long after they ceased the downvoting, @curangel stepped in to take their place. Very peculiar, I thought. What would a group like @curangel, who seem to do some very noble chores, have against @goddesseva? Surely a team such as this would leave a comment like @hivewatchers did, right?

Wrong. Yet again no explaination was given and @goddesseva has had to endure a campaign of downvoting that continued for months, until the present day.

@goddesseva made a good attempt to ignore this behaviour and only on rare occasions did she write or retaliate about it in any way. Instead she just carried on adding her own style of “uplifting” content while helplessly watching her rewards get unfairly chipped away. I applaud her for her resilience and on occasion offered a few supportive comments to let her know that not everyone at Hive is a complete bell-end. After all, I’ve been here long enough to know that these kind of malicious campaigns can really get to someone and more often than not the recipient will leave the community. I like boobs. I like positive people. I enjoy reading crypto posts written by people who aren’t tech-heads and are enjoying the ride and trying to join in with everyone else on board. To some, @goddesseva’s content may seem simple or lazy, but not everyone is here to read some 5000 word odyssey on the subject of your personal reflection about the latest changes added to hardfork 9021. Call me simple but some of us don’t mind a cheeky little post with a positive tone and a gorgeous lady. If that’s not for you then fair enough, but don’t spoil the fun for those who do enjoy it. You can always just wind your neck in and scroll on until you find something you enjoy.

Unfortunately, @goddesseva appears to have given up and no longer adds any content to her page. Shame on you @curangel. As we say in here in good old Blighty, “That’s just not cricket”.

Seeing people like this leave Hive is a sad sight, especially when it’s the direct result of a whale account bullying them until they can take no more

@curangel, you may do some very good work around here and you may support and promote some very worthy causes. However, on this occasion you’ve been a monumental cock-blocking nob-jockey. Now I have no boobs to help cheer up my Monday morning and no uplifting commentary to lighten the mood on those gloomy days. Well done you.

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Had you been made to add a comment with your DV and explained yourself a little, then maybe I’d see how right you are and realise how @goddesseva’ boobs are actually eroding the very foundations Hive stands upon… Or maybe everyone would just find out you’re someone who is quite bitter and slightly twisted up inside… my money is on the latter.

And for those who use the downvote trail feature. Maybe you would like to know where your downvotes are being placed and whether or not your DVs are being used to ruin an account for no good reason? Because if this has happened to the two examples I’ve found in the past few months, how many others have there been? And getting back to my first example, @andrianna, how many of us are upvoting content that is possibly plagiarised, or possibly not? Who knows?

The downvote was originally sold to us all as a tool to help combat plagiarism and other such harmful behaviour that could potentially damage the reputation of our beloved Hive community. That rational has since left the building. Our well spoken, good mannered, and well intentioned DV has been corrupted. It now walks around with its hand down its pants, spitting on the floor and creating an environment where people feel uncomfortable. Let’s not allow this to continue. Maybe I can’t convince anyone to actually adjust the Hive code in order to facilitate a mandatory comment when downvoting. But maybe, I can prick the conscience of those who join downvote trails to be a little more vigilant. And maybe, just maybe, I could convince those I’ve mentioned in this post to be a little more honourable and pay a bit of respect to those little people they enjoy having at their heel…

…I doubt any of what I’ve written will make a difference. Nonetheless, desalination process complete.