Downvotes do come in many forms, twitter didn't have downvotes until they added lists, then lists became a way to downvote.
That's really interesting about the decision to be able to moderate or post but not both. One thing we're doing in order to be able to help with moderating the moderator is that soon there will be a public leader log that shows what actions leaders have taken in their community and why they did it, so that people can see how their leaders are behaving. Hopefully as we grow we'll be able to add more tools that help leaders manage their communities and help the communities manage their leaders. :)
I'm a bit curious, is there a stated definition of harassment that you've agreed to?
> You are welcome to express your opinions, even if they are offensive to some users. We want honest and open discussion to happen on Imzy from all sides. However, these opinions cross the line into malicious speech when they specifically incite violence or hatred, or make people fear you will act against them in a violent manner.
> Don't encourage violence or hatred on the basis of things like race, ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, or sexual orientation.
> Don’t harass others. Harassment is defined as "a course of conduct directed at a specific person that causes substantial emotional distress in such person and serves no legitimate purpose" or "words, gestures, and actions which tend to annoy, alarm and abuse (verbally) another person". Do not engage in or provide a platform for harassment of users or communities. Harassment will not be tolerated.
Paraphrasing the rest of our post so this doesn't get too long:
Things like "I think all [race/religion/gender/other demographic] are [rude opinion]" or "You’re a [rude comment here]" is okay, but "All [race/religion/gender] should [have something terrible done to them]" or "I’m going to [specific threat against an individual]" is not. And even in the "okay" examples, if you continually and repeatedly engage in these actions against an individual and follow them throughout Imzy to do so, this crosses the line into harassment.
Beyond that, there's a big gray area. We know there are things that will come up that we won't quite fit anywhere in the policies we've written, and we'll have to make some things up as we go and refine our policies and understanding as the community evolves. And yeah, we're human, and we'll probably make mistakes sometimes. But we're working hard to set a tone of transparency and fairness so that our users will always know why we're doing things and be able to give feedback on how they want Imzy to function.
- The US is so unsafe, you can get armed bureaucrats reaching into your ass in public and feeling your hemorrhoids. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/04/01/...)
- It's so unsafe, mobs of sociopathic videogamers can "SWAT" your family by calling a SWAT team to your house. (http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/12/4693710/the-end-of-kindnes...)
- It's the world's biggest jailer of its own populace; for many a police state.
So some ensure "safety" for themselves by having all the state's violence on their side of the debate. I personally get to be pretty safe. But others want a little safety too, which is a prerequisite to freely express their opinions.
To be clear: we're not talking about shutting down dissenting opinions on math. We're talking about shutting down the violence that supports one side's mediocre, backwards ideas. No wonder why some struggle to maintain that lopsided advantage.