Downvote matters

Giving a community the ability to vote on content is important, especially on comment platforms. It's funny to think that some platforms still list comments chronologically.

Upvotes are a simple way to convey support, and it does a great job at pushing the good things to the top.

Even our political system is based on this idea. Since the days of ancient greece, polling for our desired representative has been the dominant way of organising society.

Although this ensures fairness, oftentimes politics is also just a big popularity contest.

Social platforms, especially Facebook and Twitter, thrive on this notion.

What's more, irrelevant content will remain, and spam will not be removed.

Sometimes you have to be negative to be positive.

Downvotes help curtail the spam, the troublemakers and the trolls. If you feel like you don't notice the bad side of comments, thank the community and the downvote (moderators play a large part as well, but we'll save that for another post).

Also thank the downvote for erasing the comments that go against the general consensus - that's the community using the downvote as an expression of disagreement.

So the next time you upvote or downvote, make sure you're asking whether the comment contributes, not whether you agree or disagree.

Shout out to Ben Morran for unpacking my writers block!