Average TWCenter user:
Nobody said anything about literally shutting down criticism. Nothing is physically preventing me from posting if there is an upvote system. The problem is the atmosphere it creates when a bunch of idiots with poorly thought out opinions can change the way a discussion looks. It may seem like I'm just being a ***** for not wanting to go against the grain, but the effect of "the herd" is so damn powerful that it's one of the staples of effective propaganda. No matter how good your self-esteem is, it's much less enjoyable to post when you can literally see the numbers of people who disagree with you.
Facebook is an automated, totalitarian, mass content aggregator used by literally billions of people. The whole upvoting system there is an elaborate control mechanism to regulate behaviour (Until an active purge of a lot of pages in around 2018, this system had split the site between "fragile" tankie tumblr types and Literal Nazis). It's not really comparable to a moderated forum, but the problem still exists. I'll give you an example:
How are you supposed to argue against something like this? Nobody in this screenshot has explained why they believe what they believe, but in an instant you can see which is the "right" opinion. I can already tell that this thread is going to be full of Wehraboo idiots. Other Nazi idiots are going to see this thread and want to post there more. It's a vicious Darwinian cycle which makes it much easier for like-minded people to "find" each other and reinforce each others beliefs. So no, it doesn't directly shut down criticism. But it separates differing opinions and makes them less likely to come into contact. This is the entire point -- I could go on an endless rant about social media, but basically the big websites do this on purpose. It's totalitarian.
Compare that example to some of the more recent bannerlord threads where lots of people are defending the new combat system, and a handful of people who have valid criticisms. The former vastly outnumber the latter. The problems with the combat system are fairly minute, but they drastically lower the skill ceiling.
- With an upvote system, people who don't know how to argue their point will just take to the arrows.
- With the comments alone, you actually have to read the damn thing and make up your own mind whether somebody is correct or not, rather than letting the arrows influence your opinion.
Finally and most significantly, why do you need to know what the ratio of opinions is? If someone just agrees with a post and has nothing else to add, why do we have to have a system to allow them to influence the discussion? What does it add to the conversation if a bunch of posts ?
