Some admins disable downvotes for their whole server (e.g. beehaw). It’s useful indeed considering the software is otherwise incapable of thwarting silent downvotes. But it’s too blunt as just a server-wide option.

For some communities downvotes are appropriate and some are not. The infosec.pub admin may want downvotes to be broadly possible, but it makes little sense for a community like !isdown@infosec.pub. And particularly off or obnoxious for a so-called “safe space” like !humanrights@lemmy.sdf.org.

The good thing about the fediverse is if you don't like that your admin decided to keep the downvote option you can always move the community to somewhere that does hide the downvote option.

Also doesn't it only effect local users? Someone from another instance can still downvote it.

The good thing about the fediverse is if you don’t like that your admin decided to keep the downvote option you can always move the community to somewhere that does hide the downvote option.

No you do not have that permission. Only local users can form a community on a particular node. What you suggest is a hack as a workaround to flawed software, which only works to the extent that there exists both a node that accepts new users and for which the community topic is aligned with the node’s purpose/constitution.

There are very few public nodes that disable downvotes. We are talking single digits (like <10 nodes fedi-wide). Considering all the other factors in node selection, there could be no options for various given situations.

Also doesn’t it only effect local users? Someone from another instance can still downvote it.

Yes. That’s a good point. Though I wouldn’t say this justifies the limitation.

It would also be possible for a client app to be coded to default to showing down votes based on the settings of the native community settings.

Update

According to my datasets, this is the complete list of Cloudflare-free nodes that have open reg and disable downvotes:

belgae.social “Belgae Social”
crazypeople.online “crazypeople.online”
discover.deltanauten.de “Discover”
discuss.hadan.social “hadan.social”
lemmy.blahaj.zone “Blåhaj Lemmy”
lemmy.casasnow.noho.st “SnowfanLemmy”
lemmy.durstig.online “Personal Lemmy”
lemmy.snoot.tube “lemmy.snoot.tube”
libretechni.ca “LibreTechni.ca”
lt.harding.dev “Voyager App Test”
maga.place “Maga Place”
nsfwaiclub.com “NSFW AI Club”
realbitcoin.cash “Real Bitcoin Cash”
redlemmy.com “Redlemmy”
thevoteplace.nohost.me “VotePlace”
va11halla.bar “VA-11 Hall-A Bar”