I used to downvote fairly often on Reddit as a sign to disagree or to push down really disgusting bigoted comments. And to be honest, it became a habit to just downvote without replying. However, now that I’m on lemmy and not Reddit I’ve been actively trying to not instantly downvote things and instead move on or take the time to reply. Has anyone else been trying to do this?
For any weird, bigoted stuff, lots of downvotes and no replies is hopefully the message an OP needs to receive to get the hint that they should by plying their recruitment attempts elsewhere. Engaging them is probably the worst thing to do.
I’ve had to remember that there’s automatic hiding though, and do that manually.
Definitely agree with that, I very much so still downvote bigoted comments and posts though I think I’ve only encountered two comments like that so far. Lemmy mods and admins are doing a great job.
I switched instances just so I could be on one that had downvotes because I passionately believe downvotes give immediate power to of self moderation to the users. However, I’m very light on downvoting. I only downvotevote stuff like the OP was talking about or if something is technically incorrect and damaging to a thread. But again I’m very light on downvoting, as I was on Reddit before. I usually ignore something that I simply don’t agree with or think is too silly, etc.
I think the issue is that pushing this kind of self moderating also takes a lot of culpability out of the mods hands as well and helps encourage reddit’s typical “my free speech!” trolls. I like the idea of mods having rules that allow them to use discretion to take out the trash and in theory upvotes should still outshine the trash.
That said I do see some things where it’s like this ads nothing to nothing and I do miss the ol’ downvote key to encourage it away. I also used to(well I tried anyway) use it as a means of breaking momentum of those stupid ass posts on reddit that would often fly to the top of a comment thread burying the actual discussion and content towards the bottom.
I usually downvote not because I disagree but because I think the comment is low effort or written in bad faith.
Why do you think I joined the instance I did?
Downvoting is useful for pushing irrelevant/spam comments down but it is definitely overused.
Yup, I saw vote manipulation way too much on Reddit. 3-5 down votes on a dissenting opinion right after it’s posted usually tanks even the most well reasoned comment. Accounts like Unidan fly under the radar for so long.
It’s not used for pushing irrelevant or spammy content. It’s used to show you don’t agree and push that content away from sight. At least be honest about that if you support using downvotes.
People act like they are making the thread better in some way by cleaning trash. But that’s not what happens. You are just making sure opinions you don’t agree with are at the bottom of the thread. Nothing noble about that. Feels good, sure.
You’re phrasing it in a way that is actively harmful. It’s like you’re trying to make downvotes worse than they are.
They’re absolutely useful, but not for just opinions you don’t like.
I think we just have different experiences with downvotes. I see them being harmful, yes. Because they are used to disagree, not to flag incorrect content, in subreddits (communities) where opinions are discussed. In technical fact-based subreddits they may work fine, but in discussion-based ones, they are horrible and leads to one opinion at the top always.
There’s a difference between acknowledging people use downvotes incorrectly and encouraging them to use downvotes incorrectly. The first one is a fine discussion. The second is harmful.
You shouldn’t try to make things worse to prove your point.
At least be honest about that if you support using downvotes.
lemmy.one has downvotes disabled.
I have them disabled also on my instance. Beehaw showed the way here and it makes sense to me to not use them. People just want to punish opinions they don’t agree with. The button should be called Punish. :)
If youre really into that, you should have signed up at Beehaw. They have downvotes disabled.
Personally, Imma keep doing it. Not because Im petty. But if I really disagree with something, I feel like it helps me avoid replying with something stupid or hurtful.
Downvotes really shouldn’t be for comments or submissions that you disagree with, but for anything that does not add to the conversation. Reddit started off with this guideline too, but at some point votes turned into agree/disagree.
I actually did lol, that was supposed to be my main but since they defederated from lemmy.world I’ve been using this account more. I may switch back once they refederate but for now this is my main.
Yeah such dumb move on their part.
up/down voting is simply a way to help comments you think are good, or agree with, become more/less dominant in the thread.
In some cases, comments are useful to explain why - but often that’s just not the case.
- Rikudou_Sage ( @rikudou@lemmings.world ) English17•1 year ago
Nope. Downvotes are there to be used, so I use them.
I dislike using downvote as a disagree button. Makes me feel like I’m discouraging people from sharing an opinion that’s different than mine. Even if they are wrong (in good faith) I think I’d rather they feel it is a safe place to be wrong and just own the mistake with an edit or a reply. I know it makes me feel bad (I know I should have thicker skin) when I’m downvoted for having an opinion so I don’t want to make others feel that way.
That’s a great step if it’s something worth replying to. Not everything is.
I think downvotes should be removed completely. They are useless, if a content is harmful or off topic you can just report it. With massive numbers of bots coming to Lemmy I think downvote brigades will be even more frequent. Why do we need to give a score to everything? Let’s just enjoy good content and try to answer to bad one
Come to beehaw, we don’t have downvotes.
Completely agree. Always thought voting was stupid in general.
Well, I already am! Ahaha
I don’t understand this mentality to begin with? Downvoting without context is like cursing at a random person in public and then drive away.
It’s not a really a mentality per se, it’s just a lot less mental effort to downvote and move on. Especially when you consider all the downvote bots and the fact that downvotes were not public. Downvoting in general was really devalued and people used it to just remove content from their face as opposed to engaging with it. Lemmy feels different in that regard.
Honestly, for a while on Reddit, downvote was the only action other than posting comments that I engaged with on Reddit, mostly because I never felt strongly enough to upvote or block or save. And then I went in and seriously prunes Subreddits and basically cut all the Subreddits that I would ever downvote in and the ones that were negativity based like all the Subreddits dedicated to showcasing trashy, racist or otherwise shitty people. Also, any subs generally based in being down on something, even if it was something that everyone should be down on. Also nixed subs like latestagecapitalism because while I broadly agreed with the sentiment, they very vitriolic about everything. Reddit really improved for me since then. Highly recommended, I then spent a lot more time upvoting and commenting. Obviously don’t have that problem on Lemmy.
HackerNews has an interesting approach: You can’t downvote comments unless you reach a certain amount of “Karma”, and you can’t downvote posts at all, you can “flag” them, meaning you think they don’t belong here. Flagging doesn’t affect the vote count, but massive flagging does make the post appear lower in the feed, and alerts mods.
This, alongside the tight moderation and zero-tolerance towards flame wars in the comments makes HackerNews one of the best places on the internet imho.
Not really, I’ve only ever down voted something that I thought really needed to be down voted. There is a reason why the down vote buttons exist but they should really only be used when you have a good reason to use them.
It’s funny though, because I have the exact opposite problem, as I up vote pretty much every post I see. While that is better, I understand that it’s probably also bad in it’s own way.
I think it wouldn’t hurt to upvote more than what you normally do on Reddit while you’re on Lemmy. The community here is smaller and it’ll benefit a lot of more people interacted with the site by upvoting.
I don’t know if absolute numbers would really help. Like it doesn’t bother me that I haven’t seen any lemmy posts with 35k score yet.
Just so long as there’s some variation in scores that we can use for sorting content, it works.
I intentionally joined an instance that doesn’t allow it. I do it kind of compulsively on other sites but really don’t feel good about it. Plus I always found it hurtful when people did it to me just because I didn’t know something or had a polite disagreement. Downvoting reminds me of the 6 Million Merits episode of Black Mirror (if that’s what it’s called). Now when I try to downvote Lemmy says nope can’t do that and I feel happy and relieved!
No, my up/down vote policy remains the same. I only downvote when I find the comment aggressive, rude or inappropriate. Occasionally I downvote something that is incorrect, but if the reason is that then I don’t downvote to negative values. I don’t think giving an incorrect answer deserves a negative ratio.