Some instances just disable downvotes. I have no idea exactly how that functions exactly, but I'd guess that matters. IIRC Beehaw and Lemmynsfw have both disabled downvotes. There's probably more.
this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2025
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To be clear, you can still be heavily downvoted, you just won't see it.
They disable downvotes on their own instance, which means they also don't federate downvotes from other instances to their own.
I can still be heavily downvoted on say, lemmy.world, I just won't see it. People using the instance the downvotes are originating on will see it, however.
beehaw definitely
"how that functions exactly" - well, you just change the code to ignore it when a user does try to downvote something, don't store it in the database or forward it to other users/servers...
I mean more in relation to federation. I'm not sure how downvotes work with federation as a whole, honestly.
As far as I understand ActivityPub (which, admittedly, is only very rudimentarily), downvotes are an action like any other: you perform them on your instance, then the instance sends them to the instance the community is hosted on, then that instance sends them to all instances which have users who are subscribed to it.
An instance which has disabled downvotes will ignore all of that, i.e. will not store downvotes or forward them to anyone. If you look at beehaw.org you can see all posts and comments are displayed with zero downvotes, even if you view them from another instance.
That answered my question exactly, thanks very much!
It's just an option in the admin settings to enable or disable downvotes, no code editing needed
Ah, that is even easier, TIL
Mine disables it also (blahaj.zone).
I don't know why downvotes mean so much to you on here with Lemmy. Getting downvotes don't necessarily prevent you from posting as it would on Reddit.
I don't know where you're seeing this and why it's such a concern. In general, Lemmy denizens are more down-to-earth than redditors, in my experience.
You don’t need to know where they’re seeing this or why it’s such a concern. This is No Stupid Questions. It’s not a requirement that they justify their question to your satisfaction. Their question had nothing to do with the temperament of users, either.
I didn't mean to dismiss them; maybe my wording could have been better. I'm curious about where it's being seen; sure, I don't need to know, but I want to know.
If some things get downvoted way out of proportion
A thing I learned on that other site starting with a R is that Up/Down votes aren't rational you can get a lot of votes for a one line joke not answering the question, and get downvoted for a long argumented paragraph without anybody telling you wha't s wrong. So I tend to not care about votes.
Indeed, I don't get why upvotes are public, but downvotes are hidden unless you have some admin rights on an instance.
Depends on the topic.
If you say something against communism you will get a bunch of lemmy.ml downvotes.
As an example