Why can't posts in activity feed be downvoted?

Question

I think activity feeds are like any other posts, and we should be able to downvote those in case we don't like them. Why did SoloLearn prevent members from downvoting those?

Answer 1

I think I remember vaguely that there might have been downvote attacks or something.
I'm hardly convinced with that reason though.
Everybody has to see all the posts, even if it's the greatest nonsense, all they need are enough upvotes.
Either implement filters or allow downvotes.

Answer 2

~ swim ~, that's a bit too convenient, blaming it all on the ego.
Occasionally there is really bad content in the feed: Militarism, Sexism, coldheartedness or utter nonsense that looks like someone randomly strung English words together.
Feed is not filtered, and it's only moderated in extreme cases.
So downvotes in some situations would make sense.

Answer 3

This could easily become a debate if downvotes are good or bad in general.
But I suppose it's best to concentrate on the point that you can downvote everything on Sololearn except feed posts.
So if you strongly disagree with a feed post, you're basically forced to comment, because it's your only choice if you want to do something.
This, on the other hand, may lead to long-winded debating, and you might attract the aggression of fan boys and girls (because that's what a lot of feed posts seem to be about).
So just being able to downvote silently might help people who don't want the trouble to express their opinion anyway.
In case of doubt you can always report downvote abuse.

Answer 4

~ swim ~, in serious cases, yeah, of course I would report.
There is that safety thread, too, where we can report these things, but from what I hear, moderation of feed posts is very rarely allowed, so one could question what's the point to even bother.
Also, there's content that's just annoyingly dumb but not banworthy. Why not downvote? You can upvote as well if you like it!
I have a few codes that aren't even codes, but rather jokes in code. They have been downvoted plenty, maybe because people thought: 'This isn' t even a code!'
Yeah, and why not? Why not allow that sort of feedback?
Silent downvoting good or bad isn't the point here but why you can't downvote at all.
Seb TheS, interesting suspicion!
Yeah, since the feed is by nature subjective, you'll necessarily have a lot of repetition.
Hard to prevent - but also hard to look at for users who don't care for it.
Filters would be good, so that you don't have to scroll past walls of birthday wishes for persons you have no relation to etc.

Answer 5

Yeah, Swim, you could argue that if there are downvotes, they should be free.
But actually there are guidelines in the FAQ what's a valid downvote and what's abuse. You'd just have to extend that to feed (as I think it originally was, there's even that arrow).
'If you strongly disagree why do you want to react.'
See above, ~ swim ~: Militarist propaganda, sexism, racism and other things a civilized person is morally obliged to react to.

Answer 6

Suggest to Sololearn via feedback(in-app), email, app review.
HonFu is right, there indeed were lots of targeted downvotes back then & people used to complain with lots of discussion on the topic. This may have influenced the current one for feed.
#some old discussions which may be relevant
https://www.sololearn.com/discuss/542586/
https://www.sololearn.com/discuss/668061/
https://www.sololearn.com/discuss/787060/
https://www.sololearn.com/discuss/794694/
https://www.sololearn.com/discuss/463542/

Answer 7

Maybe it's disabled because some posts might repeat multiple times for some members. And it would annoy them enough for them to downvote it. Some posts could have got a lot downvotes due that problem, maybe SoloLearn decided to prevent that.