Who Would Downthumb Something Positively Positive?

Even green lights?

People thumb down topics because they don't want to see them in their feed. There's nothing nefarious about it.

True. Sometimes

Sometimes innocuous posts are thumbed down out of pure spite.

I know. Sometimes, though, I will thumb down some radical "New theory of the Universe" just because I'm tired of looking at it.

I like those theories. Kinda science-fiction.

More like science fantasy, ya ask me.

Really, you make up a future world, populate it with regular people, and you can describe current people and sociology without offending some part of your readers. Anyhow, that's what I think most of them are doing.

I feel more annoyed when people upthumb nasty posts. The most popular posts are personal attacks.

If thumbs were public... if you could see the names of each person who upthumbed or downthumbed posts... I think you would see that much of the thumbing is driven by cliques. People use the thumbs to support their friends or to punish people who don't support the ideological narrative.

People may use downthumbs to collapse threads. I don't believe this explains the downthumbing behavior on specific posts inside of a thread.

I strongly advocate for making the names of people adding thumbs public. The anonymous thumbing leads to abuse.

Yeah, or maybe just take out the downthumb and leave the up. The downvote seems kind of undemocratic. It is a vote, but it only says "You don't think like me, so boo you."

Actually, I asked the question because my previous post "...see this" was down to zero and I thought somebody voted it down just because I posted it. But it wasn't about me. It was about this site proving its worth. I bumped it up to 2 just to see if I could and to see what happened. It immediately went back to zero. So...everwhat. For me, this day started in a good key, so it will end the same.

I'm pretty sure people only get one vote per post. If you click a second time it doesn't change the count. Although you can change between up and down if your mood changes.

Since your own posts already include a built-in upvote from you, there is really no way to upvote your own posts even once.

I don't really have any issues with the thumb-up and thumb-down feature.
If I strongly disagree with a particular post, I might thumb it down.
If I strongly agree with a particular post, I might thumb it up.

I have to say that I do like your suggestion of eliminating the thumb-down feature while keeping the thumb-up feature.
In fact I vote thumbs up for that suggestion.

I can only speak for myself. Others may agree or disagree to what I am about to say.
I could care less about others knowing who or what post I thumbed up or thumbed down.
I am not trying to hide my views or opinions.
In fact if you were to ask me, I will gladly tell you what I thumbed up and what I thumbed down..

It is human nature that this type of "score" has a psychological effect on many people. Jespah keeps telling us that it doesn't matter, but the site is putting a big number with symbols we all understand of approval or disapproval next to our posts. Some of us are beyond caring... but the amount of discussion that still comes up on this topic shows that many aren't.

Making thumbs public isn't for you Real Music, it is for the people who are being bullied by thumb abuse. If people see that you are part of a clique that upthumbs personal attacks against any disagreement, it will reduce the impact. Real Music is part of the clique here... people with a political ideology strongly to the left (which is fine) who make personal attacks on people outside their bubble (which is not fine).

When there are threads with specific, nasty personal attacks.... I suspect that you will see the same 7 names on the upthumb list for every one. It very clear that some people get downthumbs for everything they write no matter how innocuous. This is bullying.

You might be right... making thumbs public might not stop the bullying behavior. It will shine a light on exactly who is behind the thumb abuse, and I suspect that will help the targets.

Anonymous thumbs lead to more nasty insults and less dialog. I understand that this isn't the intent, but it clearly is the result.

Likely because nobody gives a damn for someone else's bollux interpretation of 'importance'.

Perhaps.

What do you think about Ponderer's suggestion of eliminating the thumb-down feature,
while still keeping the thumb-up feature?

I think that is a good suggestion.

Most users don't care for spam/homework and neediness - I downthumb 99% of rubbish, here. Because it vanishes thereafter.
It's a General-forum.
Not a community.
If you want to improve it - Go elsewhere.