Why we downvote
There is only one correct reason to downvote
So, in the past I have discussed why we upvote posts. So, now it is time to look at the other side of the equation: Why we downvote them.
The Good Reason to Downvote
As far as I am concerned there is only one good reason to downvote a post, and that is: The post harms Steem as a whole in some way. In other words, it decreases the value of Steem for almost everyone-
Bad Reasons to Downvote
Here are some reasons why people might decide to downvote something, personally I think that they are really not good reasons for it.
- You don't like the poster
- You disagree with the post
- The post is badly written
- And pretty much anything else
I feel low-quality posts harm Steem.
Anyway, if the social convention is that downvotes shouldn't be used like upvotes (but in the opposite direction of course) for evaluating quality, only for identifying harm to the platform, then it shouldn't be displayed in a symmetric manner to upvotes, and up- and downvotes shouldn't be added together in the vote count. Instead, the presentation of downvoting should be replaced with "report abuse" and the vote count should be just an unvote count, not a sum.
Great - simple and straight to the point. I've added this (and your 'why we upvote' posts) to the list of useful tips.
"The post is badly written" is cause for a downvote. How could that not be bad for steem? Poorly written articles (severe bad grammer, spelling, punctuation, and obvious carelessness) should get a downvote. They are low quality.
Please explain why you said that it is not a good reason to downvote because "The post is badly written"