For the most part I’m neutral on down voting. I don’t think I’ve ever downvoted anyone, as I don’t think I should use it to penalize someone’s work.

I would use it as a tool to penalize a post that only serves to rally a hate group or something, as those aren’t representative of the beliefs and principles I want in my community, and I think we should all make it clear that this is a place to embrace the values of others not stifle them but so far I haven’t encountered that.

Regarding whale downvotes. It’s happened to me. Someone wiped out half of the most potentially profitable post I’ve ever written with the reason if simply they felt it didn’t deserve that much. It was infuriating for a moment as it felt a lot like bullying.

After all, just because you don’t see value in something doesn’t mean none exists. So, in that moment it felt like more of the same. Someone with power and a God complex with nothing better to do fills their day by crushing those without the resources to combat it.

I can’t say that post deserved or didn’t deserve the rewards that were building. I can say I’m not a professional blogger, writer, or author, but most people on here aren’t. I do know that I was momentarily discouraged from participation, as regardless if it was a good post or not it was something I put at least some degree of effort into.

So, I think the conclusion I’ve come to is downvotes are fine, as there should be a way to minimize abuse, but we really should be very careful not to use it carelessly. It has the potential to turn away people that may have something to the bring table, but just haven’t found their niche, yet.

On the other hand. We should downvote hate speech and misinformation into oblivion. It’s one thing to express an unpopular belief in pursuit of genuine debate and exchange of ideas. It’s something completely different to just spew bullshit to get people emotionally charged and counterproductive to the idea we want to flourish here, which I believe is we all have something to contribute and working together we can solve some really big issues the world faces.