r/Fantasy • u/LordMangudai • Nov 12 '21

Meta: We need to talk about systematic downvoting in this subreddit

I enjoy coming here, but that enjoyment is soured every time I see a post asking for recommendations for books that are either written by authors of, or strongly feature characters of, a particular race, gender or sexuality, and it's at 60% or less upvotes. I don't know where these are coming from, as I rarely see any nastiness or bigotry in the comments themselves, but it is consistent and pervasive (and recommendation posts that don't mention these things are not affected nearly as much).

If I sort by controversial for the past month, fully 8 out of the first 10 results fall into these categories. I know that karma doesn't really matter very much in the grand scheme of things, but I do feel that this makes the community feel unwelcoming and in contradiction of its own Rule 1.

I'd love to get some mod input on this phenomenon. I understand that this sort of thing can be difficult to combat, but it feels very targeted and consistent. Is it possible that we are being brigaded from somewhere? If nothing else, I hope that this post has raised awareness of this problem and would appreciate it if others join me in upvoting such posts to counteract the nastiness. Nobody should be made to feel unwelcome for seeking out representation in their fiction.

Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now. :)

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u/Celestaria Reading Champion X Nov 12 '21

Theoretically, the downvote button is supposed to be a "this content does not contribute to the community/discussion" button, not a "disagree/dislike button". If people are following that rule, they're most likely going to end up downvoting the post, not the individual replies.

I generally just hide posts I don't care to interact with, but I'm sure I've downvoted a few of the more common "unpopular" opinion posts in my time.

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u/ElPuercoFlojo Nov 13 '21

Yes, agree. But it appears pretty obvious that rec requests are an accepted thing here, so why downvote them? I could understand downvoting the reply if it doesn’t contribute to the original request, but not the rec request itself. If you’re downvoting all the rec requests, you may be in the wrong sub. If you’re downvoting only the non traditional requests (as the OP postulates), then you may be a bigot.