Requirements

• Is this a feature request? For questions or discussions use https://lemmy.ml/c/lemmy_support or the matrix chat.
• Did you check to see if this issue already exists?
• Is this only a feature request? Do not put multiple feature requests in one issue.
• Is this a backend issue? Use the lemmy-ui repo for UI / frontend issues.
• Do you agree to follow the rules in our Code of Conduct?

Is your proposal related to a problem?

As part of making lemmy a more welcoming and mentally healthy environment, I think we should consider adding a local_user.show_downvotes_for_my_user setting, which can override the local_user.show_downvotes, but only for your user.

Or to put it another way: this is to enable a user being able to show downvotes for other people's posts/comments, but hide downvotes on their own content.

The downsides of disabling show_downvotes globally (not just for your user) are:

• Highly negative / low score comments seem to still be upvoted, and so encourage twitter-style rage-bait engagement (instead of just downvoting and moving on)
• You don't know which comments are actually unpopular or not, so you'd have to go into your settings and re-enable show_downvotes if you're curious.

The upside of adding this exception for your user alone, is to promote a positive experience, and for users to not have their mental well-being negatively affected by downvotes to their own content.

Many instances already have downvotes entirely removed (meaning not only are downvotes not shown, but its impossible to downvote anything). This would mitigate that need by default.

Just to clarify:

• show_downvotes globally for new users will still be true.
• This is not removing the ability to downvote.
• Users can always re-enable showing downvotes for their user at any time in their settings.

Describe the solution you'd like.

• Add a local_user.show_downvotes_for_my_user setting, default false.
• This would allow front-ends to use this setting to override the show_downvote setting for your user alone.

Describe alternatives you've considered.

• Change local_user.show_downvotes from default true, to false, for new users.
• This unfortunately brings the negatives discussed above.

Additional context

If no one's opposed, I can start working on this.

cc @Nutomic @phiresky @SleeplessOne1917 @dullbananas @aeharding @Nothing4You