No editor at the centre decides what deserves attention, and no hidden ranking quietly buries what it dislikes. Members vote on posts, flag what breaks the rules, and can push back on a flag they think is unfair. What rises and what falls is the sum of those judgements — made in the open, by the people who actually see the content.
Voting is not a private signal fed to a recommendation engine. It is a public act, on the record, and treated as seriously as posting itself.
“Users can vote once on each post. All votes can be viewed by all visitors.”Pixelmine Terms of Service · §12
There is no anonymous thumbs-down anywhere in Pixelmine. To lift a post, you vote. To push against it, you flag it — and a flag makes you name which reason applies. Negative judgement arrives with a stated case attached to a person, rather than as a silent tap that costs nothing.
Reporting is not a vague “I don’t like this”. A flag names the specific reason, so the claim being made is clear to everyone who sees it — including the person who posted.
A claim that the post spreads something untrue — misinformation dressed as fact.
A claim that the post exists to defraud, trick, or take something from the people who see it.
A claim that the content does not belong here, whatever its intent.
A claim that the post is abusive or demeaning toward the people reading it.
A claim that the post depicts, threatens, or glorifies harm done to people.
A claim that the post is repetition or unsolicited promotion rather than a genuine contribution.
A claim that the subject needs careful handling — not necessarily wrong, but not something to stumble into unwarned.
A claim that the post breaks rules applying where it is being seen. What is permitted is not identical everywhere.
This is the part that makes it democratic rather than merely reactive. A flag does not settle anything on its own — anyone who thinks it is unfair can counter it, and that counter marks the flag down. Judgement is a conversation between members, not an appeal to a company.
Not every judgement deserves the same reach. Pixelmine keeps a clear line between what quietly reshapes your own feed and what contributes to a verdict everybody lives with.
Block someone, or hide their posts, and your feed changes — nobody else’s does. It is a preference about your own experience, not a verdict on anyone.
Vote, flag, or counter a flag, and you are adding to a public judgement that shapes how everyone else encounters it.
The same voting and flagging apply to community content, so a community’s own posts answer to exactly the rules everything else does.
A vote is not a counter being incremented in some database. It is a record you signed, travelling the network like any post — which is precisely what makes publishing every vote safe rather than reckless.
Any system where evaluation carries weight invites people to game it. The rules name the games directly rather than pretending they won’t be tried.
Being straight about the limits matters more than the word “democratic” does. The community’s judgement governs what rises and what is treated as a violation — but it is not sovereign over everything.
Pixelmine reserves the right to remove posts and votes, and to act on accounts, under its terms. And your evaluations outlive your account: deleting it does not retract the votes you cast. A vote is part of the shared record, not a private preference you can take back.
One vote each, in public. Flags that name their reason. Counters that can overturn them. It is a slower, noisier way to decide what is good than an algorithm — and it belongs to the people it affects.