First, I want to say how much I value the WTH and Feature Requests categories. They’re great spaces for users to share ideas and shape Home Assistant’s future.
That said, I feel there’s currently a missing piece in this feedback mechanism: the ability to downvote ideas. Right now, we can only upvote ideas, which means the feedback is one-sided. If a large portion of the userbase disagrees with a suggestion, there’s no clear way to signal that to the HA team. I believe it’s just as important for the team to know which directions are less favored as it is to know which ones are popular.
Some might argue you can make a post disagreeing with an idea, but the same applies to upvotes—yet we use them because they’re a fast and simple way to show agreement. Not everyone has the time or desire to write a post for every topic they oppose, and a downvote button would streamline this process.
To ensure this feature remains constructive, i think downvotes should only be enabled in categories where upvotes are available, such as WTH and Feature Requests—not in general discussions or questions.
Additionally, I suggest that downvotes be hidden by default for most users. This would help prevent discouragement and maintain the positive, creative atmosphere that encourages users to share ideas without fear of visible negative reactions. However, the HA team should have full access to both upvote and downvote data, as this would provide them with a clearer and more balanced understanding of community sentiment. This way, they could better prioritize or reconsider ideas based on the complete context of user feedback.
This isn’t about discouraging creativity—it’s about giving the community the tools to provide balanced feedback. Downvotes would allow users to express disagreement with ideas that might conflict with Home Assistant’s goals or introduce unnecessary complexity. By offering both upvotes and downvotes, we’d create a more nuanced feedback system.
What do others think? Upvotes—or hopefully soon, downvotes—are welcome!
you know what would be interesting? seeing metrics like % of community voted for. Down votes can be determined by number of comments being greater than number of votes. Also the amount of views vs votes would be interesting as well to judge popularity.
Forum users tend to be a minority of the total user base of just about any software that has a dedicated forum site. So, in essence any group of users that are positively vocal about an idea may not reflect the total user base either positively or negatively.
Because WTH is about ideas if you start to sanitise that you no longer have an open community. Just like the people who criticise ideas. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean others don’t want it.
I have also thought about this before.
I think it could be good.
Some topics may accumulate a whopping 10 votes and there is a few talking about this WTH as if it had thousands of votes.
If there was down votes also then this would be a very clear sign that it’s not a good idea.
I have been a user on stack overflow a long time and appreciate the down vote mechanism since it clears up the questions and makes sure they are of quality.
But I don’t think that would be good here for general questions, but as this WTH says in WTH and feature requests it could be good and useful for everyone
