I think disabling downvotes totally for the user’s content by default would be a bad idea, because it is important for a user to know if what they are saying is unpopular.
Here’s an approach I have taken for my app (for all posts and comments).
- If downvotes are <= 5, downvotes show as 0.
- If downvotes <= 5%, downvotes show as 0.
Remember, the reasoning for this is a mere hypothesis and not results obtained from an experiment.
The 5 percent rule aims to prevent fringe opinions from downvoting. This solves issues like, “why do I have 3 downvotes on a picture of my cute puppy?”.
The 5 downvotes rule prevents downvoting bias. I have observed this happening on Reddit a lot. If a comment has 3 upvotes and 2 downvotes, people tend to downvote more (just because of the downvote counts and not the content itself). 2 downvotes in a 5 total votes sample size is too small to make any decision about the quality of content.
In my opinion, cases like these are where the downvotes serve more as a mental health destroyer rather than decentralised content moderation.
So to answer your question, I think having the current as default would be better, I.e., option “Show”. However, if you’re open to refine this even further, I would suggest the 5-5% idea.
Nah they go, “Blimey, guvna! I’m freezin’ me bits off, innit? It’s bloomin’ chilly, ain’t it? I’m perished, mate! Me teeth are chatterin’ like a bunch of chimps, I am! Oi, pass me a cuppa, would ya? I need somethin’ to warm me cockles, mate! I need to have a nice cuppa rosie lee.”