I would like to propose replacing up and down voting on comments with emoji reactions. Since Lemmy doesn’t have a consequential karma system, I don’t believe the gamification of comment upvotes helps engender a discussion with a diversity of opinions. Instead of a binary choice, we will be able to express a far greater range of reactions. I see emojis as being especially helpful as a replacement for downvotes since it will help the author understand why the reader disagrees. While I agree that replying instead of downvoting is a better choice, it’s not realistic for everyone to have the time to do so.
For posts, voting serves a useful purpose in creating a curated list of most popular posts in each community. This is important for people who don’t have time to follow all posts in their subscribed communities.
I like this idea but it requires a consistent standardized use of emojis to be effective. Upvotes seem to have a general “positive” meaning while downvotes implies negative feeling. I would love to have an emoji that meant mixed reaction, agree, disagree, funny, etc. but figure out the standard for it will be really important to understand how users are affected with the post.
I’m not sure this is possible since reactions tend to be in the context of the comment. For example, if a comment is expressing anger at an injustice, an angry emoji would probably be interpreted as “I am also angry” at the injustice and not disagreement or anger about the comment. If someone is expressing a personal loss, a sad emoji would me likely mean sympathy.
True, it’s hard to express emotion consistently. Even if the emoji has a caption “This makes me mad,” although it is conveying the emotion it’s not conveying the reason (I am angry as well, I am angry because I disagree). But we can gauge controversial/emotional posts.