This news might be unsettling for some of you. Visitors to Disqus-enabled blogs may have noticed a few changes on Thursday, Oct. 3.
The most significant changes are Disqus brings back down voting, and the comments counts have vanished on most blogs, including Sandrarose.com.
Additionally, most Disqus users report the total upvotes and comments totals on their profiles are gone.
Understandably Disqus users and blog publishers are irate over the changes, particularly blog visitors who believe down votes encourages online bullying.
Why is my comments showing up as 0 when I have comments on every single post? I have disqus. I tried reinstalling. It’ll show the amount of comments I have then switch to 0 comments but the comments show up on my post. @bloggingbeesrt @goldenblogsrt #bloggerstribe pic.twitter.com/RivfG2ZXuf
— Hannah E. Padilla (@im_hannaheunice) October 3, 2019
Disqus has been working for the past 24 hours to fix the bug that crashed the comments counter, as well as restoring the cumulative upvote totals.
The loss of comments counts and upvotes may be due to a bug, but the downvotes are here to stay according to a post on Disqus.com.
In a blog post dated Oct. 2, Disqus writes:
“Previously, we hid how many downvotes a comment received and only displayed the total upvotes, but we believe that liking and disliking something is a big part of how we engage with content and communicate with each other.”
Disqus explained that the goal in bringing back down votes is to encourage more dialogue “between people with different opinions to have more constructive interactions.”
Some Disqus users are pulling out their hair over the concept of receiving even a single down vote.
Another Disqus user wrote:
“If you’re going to downvote, STAND BY IT. If you show names by upvotes, show names by downvotes. Otherwise, you’re just enabling the trolls.”
Question: Why do you down vote?
Will you comment less if you receive down votes?
