Why I Am Not A Fan Of The Upvote/ Downvote System On Sites · 9:52pm Dec 25th, 2015
Why I Am Not A Fan Of The Upvote/ Downvote System On Sites
I have been around the internet for a long time. I've seen sites come and go over the years. I have helped to build lots of websites as a website developer and lots of apps as an app developer. I have made lots of internet games as a game developer. And there is one thing that I have not been a fan of in all of my years working as a professional website developer, app developer, game developer, musician, artist, writer, and etc. And this is the upvote/ downvote system on sites.
My reason for this is just what I have seen happen to the communities of sites which have this system in place. Although I would prefer not to mention any names, I have coded for sites similar to Reddit, which had an upvote and downvote system. A lot of these sites have an automatic code which will kick whatever posts has the most liked to the front page or the top of a queue so it is more visible for site members.
Now, the longer I have worked for these sites, the more I started to realize that there would be a huge influx in downvotes or upvotes on certain content. When I investigated, I saw that it usually came from the same IP addresses. Around that time, I learned that people can actually pay for upvotes or downvotes on their content. And the reality is that companies will often hire people to make upvoting/ downvoting codes for Reddit, Imgur, and etc. So all the person has to do is use the bot they have developed, and all of the sudden someone will have 100 upvotes on something. This also occurs on sites with a like system like Facebook or Twitter but it isn't as common because both Twitter and Facebook have a different queuing system, which is based more on views and comments which kick a post to the top of the feed.
Anyways, the more I saw that people were paying people for upvotes/downvotes the more I started to really dislike the system. Because often what you will see is a big company pay for likes/ comments on their content to online advertisers. And that is why the big companies on Reddit, Imgur, and etc. are always queued at the top of the feed every time you log into the site. There are sites like Fiverr that sell upvotes and Downvotes at $5.00 for 10,000 likes. And if you think I'm stretching the truth, go to Fiverr now and check in 'buy likes'. You'll get 50+ sellers willing to sell you those 10,000 likes on anything you need. So needless to say, I am not a big fan of the upvote/downvote system for that reason alone.
But there is also something I have noticed about the community of sites with this system in place (and this is more talking about the big players like Reddit for example) and that is that it attracts a malicious community of people who are willing to downvote or leave a nasty comment on anything you post. Something to take note of is that a lot of these malicious comments or downvotes are probably being sponsored by people who have paid for this service. But it also encourages real site users to engage in the same negative activity. And pretty soon you get an entire community of people who will leave bad comments and downvote things because it become a cultural norm. I have seen this time and time again working as a coder and developer for various sites.
I know that when I coded for these sites, we would have to tighten the rules to try to discourage people from abusing the system. But the thing is that these companies will always find creative ways to get people to like their content. They will find someone who can get past the bots that monitor the site spam and will pay them to upvote their content and downvote everyone else's. So sites like Reddit for example will continue to tighten the rules until regular or casual site users like you and me are so bogged down by posting rules, we can't post any of our own content. The advertisers on the other hand will keep paying for those likes, and their stuff will continue to get featured on the main page.
So this is just one of many reason why I am personally not a bit fan of the upvote or downvote system on sites like Reddit, Imgur, or etc. People are free to have their own point of view on the matter. But this is just mine. I hope that my journal was informative and could open your eyes to a couple of features on sites that you might not have been aware of before. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I am always happy to answers questions about website developing and coding. Cheers.
But isn't that like saying you hate the security system because people can steal from it?
3642879 It isn't just the system itself though. It is the community that is at a disadvantage because of that system. A good real world example is how for example in most parts of Asia (including Japan) you never have to worry about locking your door or car because no one would really think as a community to take something. However, here in America, that is unheard of. If you left your American home unlocked, or your car unsecured, you would get broken into in five seconds flat. No joke. So you can see how the security system isn't always the answer. It is more how the community is managed on an internal level.
In other words, if you have a community who understands the implications of that system, it would discourage the behavior.
I always hate when people that have money use things like this to their advantage
3642955 Yep. I agree. It is something that has always bothered me being a part of many sites over the years that have implicated this system. And it is always the casual user or someone who is starting an enterprise of some kind that loses out because their posts will always be buried by the big time companies/ power users of the site. Another thing I forgot to add is that Twitter and Facebook (along with Pinterest, Tumblr, YouTube and a few other social media sites) will always give priority to anyone who pays for advertising space on their site. And that is why you will see sponsored pages, adds, and such pop up in your feed until you click the option of not wanting to see them (which I do every time). This definitely effects people who have Pages (like small business owners, artists, writers, or other creative people) who are just trying to get the word out about their stuff.
3642889 There are always people who abusr the system no matter what. You can't really blame thieves and cheaters for existing.
If the system itself is flawed it will be exploited.
However you can't blame the system either. All systems are manmade and thus have flaws.
All you can do is try to be fair and hunt down the fakers. If that isn't actively done then there's something really rotten.
3643134 Well one thing you can do for this particular problem is make codes that automatically ban people who are sending multiple likes from one IP address. Or a system that will warn a site member a certain amount of times not to engage in that activity before their account it banned. However, this isn't always the best option either because sometimes you will have a site member who just happened to like a lot of things in one day, and then if they get an auto warning or auto ban, it is unfair for the user. There are safeguards in place for the upvote/ downvote system in other words, but they aren't always effective at getting rid of the real problem; people who are paid to like content or even a mass amount of people who vote for their own content (like company workers for example).
But usually big corporations tend to be favored over the opinions of a casual site user. And this is why you see so many people get kicked off of sites like Reddit, Imgur, and so on; they are given warnings and auto-banned for not understanding the rules. And if you try to get a site mod involved, they usually aren't very helpful in terms of recovering your account/ unblocking your IP. At the end of the day it comes down to what the sites want in terms of content. A lot of upvote sites want to keep the big players like CNN around because that means more revenue for them (because they get add revenue, among other revenue from sponsoring their posts and such).
It is harder for a little guy or someone trying to get the word out about their content to get the attention for their work because they are continually being outsold by the big players on the site. That is what upvotes are for; to attract the big players to get their content seen. And this is why I have seen a lot of people leave these sites that are bogged down by rules, bot stuff, and other obstacles for media sharing apps such as Periscope which have a looser policy in terms of what people can plug, promote, and broadcast as a semi-professional or non-professional user just starting out.
3643161 I don't even get how you consider imgur and 4chan legitimate sites. To be honest I think the one only serves the ourpose of storing images and the other is full of trolling edgelords.
Only Reddit has some actual credibility as far as corporate interests go.
There's also a big difference between liking many things and spamming likes through different accounts.
3643173 That is because Imgur does fair amount of money from ad revenue and people using the site. As does Reddit. They might not be relevant to you or me (per se) as users. But the content that gets shared on them is what ends up getting spread on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and etc. Basically, things start on Imgur, 4Chan, Reddit, and get spread around to different sites as people see a meme, GIF, or other piece of data they find relevant to share on their own timelines. Then those end up on social media sites, personal blogs, and so on. So they are important in that they are big players on the internet in terms of how information about things you promote gets out to the internet in general.
A good example is a Gif I shared on imgur which got 10,000+ likes and was shared multiple times on many different account. This one here. Now because my GIF was seen 10,000+ times and shared a bunch of times, that means that 10,000+ people looked at my profile, all of the links on my profile, and visited my sites (music, writing, and otherwise). And the traffic of those sites went up. So you can see how putting content on these sites is valuable in terms of boosting visibility to your profile and your creative content.
So if I say, own a corporation and find a way to get a bunch of likes for my content, then that content is what is visible and what is spread to different social media sites across the internet. My site gets looked at, my links get checked out, and I become relevant to anyone who has seen my posted content. And they have paid advertising spots which makes their content more visible than other users or say artists or small time people who are trying to get the word out about their video games. So you can see how the system can be vastly tipped in the favor of power users or corporations as opposed to someone who is trying to get people to donate to their Patreon or Kickstarter or get noticed for their creative work in particular. A lot of good ideas get buried for this reason.
And that is why I say that these sites mainly cater to the big players. They do it for the revenue and because it is beneficial for them. Which means that the work of small; time artists, game developers, or other people trying to get the word out about their stuff doesn't always shine through.
3643208 Did it really help you this much? And quite frankly I don't see how this generally affects people. Objectively speaking this is all wide speculation I am looking at with little proof of overarching design or corporate plot visible or proven to me.
3643245 It was a big help to have my content on Reddit, Imgur, and etc, provided that I shared something that got enough likes which then encouraged people to go back to look at the profiles on each my sites. I might not be doing the best way of explaining it. But there are a lot of videos on YouTube about using sites like Reddit, 4Chan, Imgur, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and etc. to market your stuff. It is called Social Media Marketing. And of course the big companies are aware of this too. So they use the upvote/ commenting/ view system that many of these sites have to their advantage. Especially if paid advertising is involved, which many of these sites offer, and is how they get a lot of money from ad revenue.
3643262 Well youtube copyright laws suck balls.
3643272 That is a good example of what I am talking about. YouTube depends on advertisers for revenue (along with merchandise, the royalties they get from people's videos as in the percentage taken out and etc.). So that is why there are so much copyright legal red tape on the site; they don't want to make the people advertising content in videos and paying them angry by leaving up copyrighted content, so they find it easier to just tell everyone not to post copyrighted material and ban/ delete accounts that are repeat offenders.
3643278 The thing with youtube though is there aren't any legitimate alternatives to it.
3643302 Well Pericope is a video broadcasting app that a lot of people are turning to because they don't have the same copyright issues that YouTube has. There is also Daily Motion, which has a looser copyright policy than YouTube does. And also Veoh, Vimeo, and the Vine app. The Vine and Periscope app in particular have rose in popularity because they have a looser copyright policy.
3643318 But isn't Vine like only for 6-10 second videos only?
Full of memes n stuff? No actual content?
3643333 Yeah, Vine has cornered the market for a certain genre of video, which is the flash video genre or meme videos as you said. But Periscope is a video recording/ streaming app that allows to to record, stream, and download full videos.
3646024 Right. Ok. I generally don't see conspiracies like this in fimfiction.net
3646139 I see certain issues which result from the upvote/ downvote system here but not as much as what occur on sites such as Reddit, Imgur, 4Chan which have advertisers that pay them to get their content seen.
3646209 Most people here don't make money either.
3646246 That is probably why there isn't the same problem as on Reddit, 4Chan, and etc.
3646209 Yea no system is without flaw. However bear in mind that there is no conspiracy at play by the mods here.
3646518 I never said there was. I just said that as a whole, I am not a fan of the upvote/ downvote system because I've seen the trouble it causes on sites like Reddit or Imgur.
3646624 Its just that Pupkinominous or whatever uses your blog posts as ways to feed his own conspiracy theories and flacking the site with invalid claims and circumstantial and vague evidence. Its kinda getting on my nerves because it ruins the fun for some people.
Yes some people are way better than others in promoting their products. It takes followers, time, effort, actually good writing, patience and knowing your audience.
Some people pay for their products to circulate that's fine, and yes I admit not all concontent is promoted/liked/upvoted fairly. No system is without flaw and the fact is that sites like imgur and Reddit... Don’t have an active system regulating all this, or they didn't make up for it in their creation.
The Internet is a veritable mess but I hate it when sites like fimfiction.net who at least have a shred of decency... Get flack for little to no reason. Especially by people who have been less than me in the site.
3646722 Well in my blog, I typically discuss things I have seen as a professional writer, artist, animator, web developer, app developer, and musician. I have a lot of experience in these fields and have seen various thing over the years in each one. Like I could talk a lot about what I've seen in the music industry, and the publishing industry, as I have a producer for my music and am a published writer. So my blogs are typically just about things I see from the inside out, working full time in the entertainment industry.
3646762 Right. I am just a computer Engineering university student.
3646788 That's pretty cool. :) Keep on working hard and get that degree. I have a lot of friends who went that route too. ;)