Have there been more downvotes since the button was relabeled and moved?
This was a question posed to me earlier, and although it's only been a few weeks since the change, I guess it's worth a look.....
On the 2nd May 2019, Steemit Inc relabeled flags as downvotes and changed the icon from a red flag to a downvote button which now sits next to, you guessed it, the upvote button.
As with any change, there are differing opinions but for what it's worth, I agree with this one from both a usability and marketing perspective. Moving the button and making it look like the opposite of the upvote button is logical, and bringing the functionality into the line of sight (away from the naughty corner) may help reduce the stigma around feature, or not.
More or less?
Only 23 days have passed since the change, and so the data might not tell too much, but this is how all downvotes since the first of April look:
Not a really a noticeable change there but May looks lower on average.
What if we remove the top 15 downvoters?
'spaminator','mack-bot','realcleaner','lyndsayblowes','cheetah','camillesteemer','dumb-as-an-ox','trollshunter','shit-posts','scruffyjunkies','iflagtrash','abusereports','steemcleaners','plentyofphish','flags4pedos'
Hmm, downvotes are on a downtrend, but this looks to have been the case since mid-April.
The next two charts relate to the number of accounts doing the downvoting each day, and the number of unique accounts being downvoted each day.
Again, the average is lower for May than April.
Although some interesting spikes here as on a couple of days in the past week or so, over 1000 unique users have received a downvote. I would guess that these votes are scripted following the uncovering of a comment/spam farm or two.
This last piece of data looks at the downvotes as a percentage of the total votes cast during the timeframe used in the above charts.
| Time period | Percentage of Downvotes |
|---|---|
| 1st April - 24th May | 0.00556% |
| 1st April - 1st May | 0.00564% |
| 2nd May - 24th May | 0.00546% |
We need 4 decimal points before any changes can be seen, such is the low number of downvotes compared to the total votes cast on any given day.
And yes, as a percentage, there have been fewer downvotes since the 2nd April.
Need more incentive?
It seems that thus far, relabeling and moving the button has not encouraged more downvoting.
Perhaps what is being discussed on the post linked below will have more of an impact?
https://steemit.com/steem/@vandeberg/downvote-pool-deep-dive
Cheers
Asher
0.005% Jesus that is low.
The suggestion of free downvotes now makes a little more sense!
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Ironically, I reveive my first big dowvote in months on my comment on the post you mention.
I knew I had to turn around the moment I saw it was a post about downvoting, but noooh... I was stupid enough to give my opinion.
You'd think I'd know by now that there are just topics you should stay away from. Good, old censorship makes sure that what people see is people sharing the same opinion - after all, you're punished if you have a different one.
The blockchain... uncensord and freedom of speech... what a joke :0(
I will get to this later, but I think the renaming and positioning wasn't to encourage more downvotes but rather to normalize the convention. I think the suggestion for discounted downvotes is what is needed for an increase.
Thanks for the analysis.
Yes fair enough, 'normalize the convention' :)
Agreed. How much for 'free' though?
I am not sure but I would say that 10-20% would be a pretty good indicator of how it performs in the wild.
I'm gonna downvote this comment just for the hell of it.
:D What I have seen happen when users do this is......
I will always call it a flag and I'm too powerless to use them..
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If combined with the reward curve changes proposed recently, your downvote will have more of an impact, the higher the content is valued.
Yes, this seems like the only aspect of the eic that can only improve the ecosystem. The other two points only time will tell, but I can't imagine things getting much worse than they are presently.. Based on polling it looks to be happening, almost every top witness is on board.
Let me crowbar in here: the aspect of a changed reward curve makes sense - on it's own. The rest... not so much
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Even tho I like the downvote presentation, where are the flags represented? As someone with lots of years in science and working with big data files, and representing results - if you are comparing two things you need to show them.
In this example, you could overlap flags from Feb and March to overlap with DW from April and May.
And... I am pretty sure that everyone on steem knew about the flags even before changing the name to downvote - yes, it took me everytime half a minute to find it, but I knew I could find it, if I needed/wanted it to use.
Cheers
Shouldn't you be measuring flags per total posts? Rather than an absolute number? That way, if the total number of posts go down, then the total flags go down as well... Due to lower total usage?
It should be renamed 'click here for free crypto' or 'register for airdrop' and it should give a satisfying level up PING!
Yes, perhaps :)
I'm not really with it today, family stuff is occupying my mind.
No problem, looking forward to seeing your candidate announcement for Prime Minister. Or whatever it is you are up to...
Who wouldn't trust a Prime Ministerial candidate called 'abh12345'...?
He has Rep 74, I would trust him! Focus on the rep and hammer it with a big marketing campaign!
He can count! He mostly knows his alphabet! He's English or similar! Vote for XXXNNNNN!
Definitely has my 5000 votes!
Would you believe that I never once realised you were Unity until now?
So, why are we having that downvote pool discussion again?
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Check the link, it seems it could well happen at some point...
Oh! I have read that. And I disagree.
Don't want to annoy you personally. Thought your analysis is another argument as yo why the downvote discussion is not the most important thing at the moment.
Just check who is among the top downvoters you excluded. Are these the accounts we want to encourage?
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Well actually, my sick Grandad is what's really on my mind at present but I don't feel like writing about that today. So a brief analysis piece as I was tagged in the comments of the post linked will suit me fine today.
All in all, there is not a lot of owned SP there - most of it is Steemit Incs delegations.
realcleaner and abusereports are owned by whales with a big sense of humour :)
First: I wishing your grandfather the best.
Second: we know who the good guys are. My worry is that the new changes will mainly be abused by toxic accounts.
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Thank you.
I don't think the situation can get worse. For the most part, average users producing reasonable content are not flagged.
There is however a constant stream of comment farming, content indifferent voting, and plagiarism.
Bad* sense of humor.
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.
Yup, so it's not that people couldn't find the button before :)
I didn't drill down, might do at some point, but my guess is a vote farm bust or some 'flag war' activities.
Everyone that is butthurt about the change :
You were wrong and will continue to be wrong. No big deal, no one is a prophet (besides Billy Meyer).
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Happy to be wrong each day, that usually means I've tried something new and ballsed it up :)
In this case it's being wrong about what would happen if we tried something new. I don't get those people who are so convinced of their prophecy, I mean da faq, where do they get these ideas.
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