I think I’ve settled on the latter. Disagreement is maybe best communicated by the absence of an upvote? And downvotes work best when they signal something that is just off base, and while not reportable, is not appreciated at a broad cultural level.
i will downvote anythong that is false, misleading, doesn’t contribute to the conversation or classic reddit humor adding to the same joke
=This is Bad content, which i want to see less of
I think this is very close to the most solid answer possible. Like
This is Bad content
I agree completely with this bit. Downvotes are inherently subjective, as is the concept of Bad content. But to make a choice of what to downvote, someone has to identify something worth deeming downvotable, and screw it, that’s a good way to deacribe what the majority of what falls under that umbrella.
The next bit is where I’d make a correction.
which I want others to see less of
You can’t unsee that bad content, it’s too late. And you can’t guarantee that downvoting will dissuade its continued presence. The only correlation between the two involves an expected emotional attachment between the posters of the bad content and their scoring outcome, and that’s not always here nor there. Bad content posters can be persistent.
But downvoting it has an immediate effect on the visibility of the Bad content for other people. It also labels that content. Doing so, puts it away from other people’s eyes, and tells others that someone thinks it should be put away. Maybe they’ll come to agree or disagree with that downvote, maybe it’ll lead to you seeing less content. Also no guarantee. But that immediate effect, the visibility and the score, can not be taken away.
In either scenario, it’s a communication tool. It may relate to your wishes for content, but mechanically, its impact is felt by a third party.
100% you should feel bad. I hope everyone i downvote cries themselves to sleep
Sooo … if this is sarcasm I’m not sure I quite get it? People shouldn’t be so sensitive about downvotes and the like?
I want everyone i downvote to die and burn in hell
Does the thought of the person, that you plan to downvote, crying themselves to sleep make you happy? Then you should downvote them. I think that’s what they wanted to say.
I just think everyone I downvote is undeniably evil and any amount of hatred towards them is justified
Based
I think voting based on quality of content (and NOT whether you agree with it) is the best approach for healthy discussions. If somebody is a low effort troll, then for sure downvote (and maybe even consider reporting).
OTOH, if somebody makes a well written and thoughtful post about why Totoro is the best Ghibli movie ever, and meanwhile you think Totoro is not even in their top 3, then I would still recommend NOT downvoting 😃
The problem is that there’s no way to enforce this in practice. All of these conversations about voting culture, with examples and pontificating always just come off as “everyone who drives slower than me is a grandpa, everyone who drives faster than me is a lunatic.”
Downvotes will always be an “I disagree” button no matter what anyone wants or thinks.
Most people on Lemmy right now are not using them in that way. As we grow, misuse of downvotes will almost certainly become more common, but right now people are self-policing their behavior for the most part
Those of us on kbin can see who up/downvotes. I’ve noticed, anecdotally, that once this became more wildly known, there have been fewer downvotes that mean “I disagree”, with them mostly being used on troll posts or obviously bigoted posts.
I’m aware of that and I like that behavior.
I’m also wary of potential downsides though. I think in smaller communities it could be a problem because people might start fights with each other when they check who downvoted them. But I’m not sure, at least now we have a good test environment on kbin, and so far it seems to be beneficial based on what you’re saying.
I think it’s overall good. A vote is no longer an anonymous action-- it’s personal, just like leaving a comment supporting or disagreeing would be. While I don’t think it would ever be appropriate to harass a person because they up/down voted something, I do think people should have to make the mental calculation about whether they’re willing to have any specific up or down vote available for anyone to see.
I think it’s done more good than harm and don’t want to see them anonymized again… but I do have to say I’ve found myself withholding a downvote that I think was completely justifiable and deserved because I didn’t want to be the first and only one and get shit for it.
I guarantee it won’t be long before communities begin using this information.
Remember on Reddit how many subs would prematurely ban any accounts that participated in subs they disliked? That was entirely driven by the users, not the platform. Imagine if they had your voting information too.
I predict we’ll start seeing throwaway accounts for voting, to disassociate your voting records from your posting persona.
This is kind of why, I feel like it is a bad thing. People can’t vote normally or are afraid to do so in a way.
Some won’t use the vote system to avoid possible trouble (arguments, downvoting back etc).
I personally have started to care way less about the upvote and downvote stuff. Reddit made it clear to me that it means nothing.
It just internet points and if something goes wrong, it’s all gone anyway.
This is why the Beehaw way is a good approach. No downvotes only upvotes. Then people actually have to tell why they disagree.
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I’ve upvoted comments that I disagreed with, but were well written an contributed to a good discussion. I only downvote for very low quality, spam or hateful comments.
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Yes. This.
Upvoting things you disagree with but are well put and compelling is the litmus test in a way.
Vote for quality = a better platform
Vote for personal appreciation = a toxic platform ?
I’ve always been partial to “irrelevant to the discussion”.
For example: if a post is detailing increased temperatures compared to a previous year: ✅ Comment saying “This is most likely an effect of global warming” ✅ Comment saying “This paper is potentially biased as the paper/publication is sponsored” ✅ Replies to these comments discussing the legitimacy of their claims (for or against them) ⛔ Comment which is promoting their own content (even if related) with no discussion of the linked post ⛔ Intentionally incendiary comments. “Liberals will say it’s climate change I bet.” ⛔ Completely off topic. “Ok but guys let’s talk about SCARING THE HOES for a second here. Straight flames.”
Too many people use a downvote as “I disagree” when a comment may actually provide a different viewpoint and - as long as it’s respectful and open to counterpoints itself - can be a nice addition to the discussion.
Downvote for bad technical advise, I think the person is a bad actor/bad faith argument, or if the person turns
hostileto ad hominem attacks. I try not to downvote if I’m putting the effort into debating someone.edit: for clarity
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Yeah if someone say something I disagree with but isn’t factually wrong I’ll just leave it be.
It’s weird how nobody ever goes off on these philosophical treatises about what a downvote is REALLY supposed to be for unless they copped a shit ton of downvotes for their awful takes
To quote the famed philosopher T. Soprano: “Alright, but you gotta get over it.”
I don’t that’s entirely fair or true across the board. I haven’t received a ton of downvotes or anything, but realised that I didn’t know what to do with the downvote and that some were clearly using downvotes where I don’t think I would have.
For my, it was more sympathetic. I was thinking about people who do get downvoted and whether I’m ok with that.
Let say there is a news story of a horrible event. I will up vote it so people see it and read it to learn. I am not up voting it because I am promoting the horrible event.
For me, downvote typically means either “this adds nothing to the discussion” or “this was made in bad faith”
Neither; downvotes = this doesn’t contribute to the topic and/or doesn’t contribute anything relevant to the conversation.
That’s what a lot of us agreed it was for a long time ago, but most people use it as an “I don’t like this”, or “I disagree” button. Some people even use it as an “I don’t like you personally” button. There were a few times on Reddit when I got into an argument with someone and they went through my profile and downvoted everything they saw until they got bored.
Up = I like this
Down = I hate this
If you have more ups than downs: The viewers commonly liked it.
If you have more downs than ups: The viewers commonly hated it.
It’s simple and it’s how it’s always worked, and likely will continue to work, regardless of any deeper sentiments some people may have about it.
I wish there was a new button that simply meant “I have no opinion on this one way or another.” But I guess that’s simply non-engagement.
I use it as:
up = this should be here
Down = this should not be here
Course I have my own biases but. I don’t want to see people get downvoted for saying things I don’t like just because I don’t like it. Also anyone who downvotes honest questions is just being mean.
I dont believe you.
It doesn’t have to be a button. Just let users see how many other users saw their comment. If a user scrolls into the comments section and stops on my comment for a second or two, that counts as a read.
Alternatively, tally up the total number of user-seconds spent viewing my comment. Or maybe an average. Just something that lets me know I’m not a ghost!
More like get this shit outa here
Downvote = “I think this should be less visible than it is.”
Generally for disagreeing with something that’s pretty petty.
But if it’s verifiably misinformation, downvotes are more than warranted.
Agreed. The function of the down vote is to deprioritize that post/comment. People should use the down vote when they want to deprioritize that post/comment.
Its both. It will never, not be both. This idea that there should be some rule that we have to up vote things that we disagree with because it’s well written is cope from people that needs to go outside.
Comments get downvoted because it failed to convince people to agree with the comment and that makes it a bad comment.
But as an intelligent person, you can also discriminate between something that doesn’t convince you personally, and something that is completely without value or irrelevant.
When you refrain from downvoting in the former instance, you contribute to a more healthy discussion. Not every person that I disagree with is a bad person; similarly, not every comment that I disagree with is a bad comment.
Would you like to make an example of a good comment that you disagree with? Because in my world comments that I disagree with are bad comments. If they were good comments I would agree with them. I am not some teacher grading essays and giving points for good structure.
Yes, it really bugs me when I get downvotes but not one single comment articulating what they are not liking or what they disagree with. I could not care less about the score, I’m here for discussion and also debate. I often find when I ask “why the downvotes” it’s because people misinterpreted what I wrote (my fault, I need to be clear) or I used info they didn’t have (something I know because of an area of interest that I think it’s common knowledge in that group). Both can “fixed” by discussion.
You’re taking things way to personally on the internet if you worry about down votes. It’s not people’s job to explain everything to you. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t, learn to move on from downvotes.
I stick to the original “Reddiquette” which I wish more people stuck to or even fucking READ for a start.
Downvotes were meant for off-topic and spam nonsense. They were NEVER meant for disagreement. If you disagreed with someone you were encouraged to comment in response. It fostered a much better and interesting community with people of differeing views not afraid to voice their dissent.
You would literally get right and left-wingers having heated but civil debates with each other and neither would be getting heavily downvoted. Can you imagine that happening on Reddit nowadays?
When Diggers and the general populace jumped on Reddit downvotes just turned into a spiteful and underhanded way of saying “Fuck your opinion and I don’t feel like justifying it”.
This resulted in echo chambers where people were too afraid to voice their true opinions cos they’d get downvoted and at worst banned from the subreddit by over-zealous mods who’d forgotten what downvotes were for.
I have a personal theory that this accelerated the polarisation of politics across the English-speaking world. Maybe if Republicans* didn’t get so heavily downvoted they wouldn’t have turned to places like The_Donald and 8chan to vent in like-minded echo chambers. They could discuss things without getting villified and have their views challenged in a civil manner.
*NB. Shouldn’t matter but to be clear I’m a left wing Brit. I’m just using Donald Trump/Democrats as a will known divisive issue.
I LOVE Lemmy because it has the oldschool Reddit vibe where people will disagree and neither person is downvoting the other. They just have civil discussion. Much better!!
Personally I NEVER downvote unless it’s utterly meaningless, pointless or just downright spam. I recently added one more trigger for me to downvote though: Low effort bullshit like “This” or puns that add ntohing to the conversation except to garner upvotes for their ‘comedic’ value.
There’s difference in disagreeing in opionion and thinking someone is just wrong. In the latter case, I find it reasonable to suppress their comment using downvotes.
