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.
=This is Bad content, which i want to see less of
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.”
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 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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Low effort trolls want downvotes though. You’re better off just ignoring them.
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For me, downvote typically means either “this adds nothing to the discussion” or “this was made in bad faith”
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
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.
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.
Depends on what kind of post it is.
General discussion threads, sure - ‘up’ = ‘good content’, ‘down’ = ‘irrelevant’. Irrelevant could be because it’s not to do with the matter at hand, it could be hateful, trollish, whatever.
Post asking for a specific fact, like in ye olde askahistorian? Up = correct, down = incorrect. Doesn’t matter how well written or how good the intent is, downvoting for disinformation.
One of the things that Slashdot got right was being able to upvote / downvote with a reason. (Perhaps only being able to upvote / downvote occasionally too, which stops brigading.) Made it possible to filter on why things were good, save ruining your fake internet points when you were mistaken about something as opposed to being an arsehole.
Interesting! I’ve kinda thought this myself, that having a sort of sentiment meta data attached to online actions would be an interesting way to go, kind of as a substitute for the body language and gestures we use and pick up on in real life.
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.
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!
Downvote = “I think this should be a little lower in the sort priority”
It’s the opposite of an upvote.
Yep same, purely for what I want to see higher/lower in the sort
I feel that should be balanced with: this is appropriate here so I won’t downvote it, even if it’s irrelevant to me.
… I suppose for big communities that averages out so it’s okay, but maybe not for small
Yeah true! I guess there’s some subtle complexities to it
Like if you downvote everything you don’t upvote, it almost doesn’t have an effect because all those things are equally bearing one new downvote and hence don’t change sort precedence with each other.
Don’t feel bad. I down vote things I don’t want to see. Others much want to see that but I am putting my 2cents in.
This isn’t reddit getting downvoted won’t mean you can only post every 10mins. You can post as much as you want
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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Disagreement is maybe best communicated by the absence of an upvote?
There is a quote “You can not not communicate” but on the internet you can. If I get no upvotes, I don’t know if no one has seen it or people actively ignored it and it’s a bad advice to feel disagreed on when no upvotes.
I personally feel frustrated when I get downvotes but no comments because I don’t know why I’m downvoted. Some instances here in the lemmyverse (like mine) don’t have downvotes enabled so I don’t even see downvotes.
I think it’s best to engage in a conversation if you disagree in a constructive way and downvote without comment if you feel this is beyond help.
If I want an article to be read by others, I give an upvote. I’ll downvote if I don’t want it. It has nothing to do with my side of the idea or the event. For example, a rape news was shared. My upvoting does not mean that I support the incident, it just means that it will come to the fore so others can see it.
Upvotes mean “people should see this”. Downvotes mean “there is no reason for anyone to see this”.
Downvote = I disagree
I disagree so I gave you a downvote
Originally up- and down votes were intended to crowd source filtering and rating content in a community. So voting up for things you want to see more of and vote down spam or content that is unfit for the community. But people will tend to upvote things they agree with and downvote those they deem wrong - I also find myself doing something like that. I now try to follow these rules:
- Upvote things I like (or agree with)
- Don’t vote on things I don’t agree with or think are dumb
- Downvote things that I feel really don’t belong here.
It helps that lemmy currently shows the number of up and down votes instead of just the score, it gives a bit more inhibition before downvoting stuff.
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Good question. I think reporting is left to cases where a post is so bad that a moderator needs to take action to remove it or the user from the community. So downvote things that are of low quality and report things that are against the community or instance rules?
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Yes, up/down votes are inherently subjective and reports are to be used for objectively bad content. It is up to the users to decide whether they feel that opinions they don’t agree with are worthy of downvoting or not. In the end the voting system tries to give the community a voice to mirror what content they like to see - within the rules that are enforced by moderators. I think it would be better if people downvote content they don’t like instead of using it to “punish” people they argue with. That’s why I think it is a slight improvement that lemmy shows up and down votes separately - it gives the downvote a bit more gravitas and in consequence “not voting” receives some, too.
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Interesting. I have buttons for voting up and down in the web UI and on mobile in voyager. Is that a setting of the home instance?
I’m not sure what you mean with single function and the separate voting system. Voting on threads vs voting on posts?
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