Downvotes = “I disagree” or “this is bad and you should feel bad”?
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.
Downvote for bad technical advise, I think the person is a bad actor/bad faith argument, or if the person turns hostile to ad hominem attacks. I try not to downvote if I’m putting the effort into debating someone.
I agree with this. If I’m scrolling through a Linux forum and someone is stating something demonstrably incorrect, I don’t want someone to stumble on the post and run into difficulties so I always downvote that particular post and upvote the posts with the right answer.
Now, if I disagree with someone that’s different.
Like if I’m in a thread about your favourite tv show, I don’t downvote someone I disagree with because it’s subjective. I might upvote the people I agree with, but it doesn’t seem fair to downvote someone’s opinion.
But some things are either right or wrong, and your example of bad technical advice is one such thing
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 think of it like a digital facial expression. Upvoting is akin to smiling or conveying some other positive emotion like affirmation or understanding (even if the subject matter is inherently negative). Downvote is the opposite- someone says something irl that makes you frown or grimmace, or you know they’re telling you a lie, your expression can convey that without a single word. Here, downvote.
There’s no real etiquette - if you feel like you want to give an up or down vote, just do it and don’t put too much thought into it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Lol, point taken. It has to be an actual rebuttal, and I guess that does take time. Downvoting everything you don’t immediately agree with seems like a bad policy, though.
I feel like this is a good approach. Honestly an invisible voting system might be better cause how many up or down votes something has prevents others from fully forming their own opinion.
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 😃
I see downvoting of comments for stuff that does not require mods, but is still people being assholes or something not belonging. I don’t vote enough on submissions to have an opinion there :D
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.
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.
Hmm, that is a good point. I really wish Beehaw would refederate with SJW so we could benefit from their activity and experience more. I don’t agree with every decision they make but they certainly have insightful takes at times
Eh I still like downvotes and find myself just not enjoying beehaw as much without them. I mostly just don’t get the moral panic over having a disagree button more than anything.
Moral panic? What? It’s about healthy community dialogue and slightly how downvotes impacts the psyche.
If someone tells you why they dislike something you like, you’re not doing anyone a favor by downvoting it.
You are ignoring how trolls operate in reality though. THey explicitly use “just having an opinion” as cover for shitting up a forum. Look up “sealioning.”
But again, this is my opinion. People are far too concerned about the downvote button. And the fact that the above, completely respectful but seemingly controversial opinion already has downvotes kind of proves my point.
It would be useful if people actually used it to burrow trolls, sealions and irrelevant comments as intended, but as I’ve seen people can’t be trusted with that because as you say: It becomes a “disagree” instead, that targets everything that people disagree with. It gets inane on political topics where useless comments for the right tribe gets immensely upvoted. “Covfefe” Yes, very informative. There could be alternate vote for agreement, funny, or troll mark.
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 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.
Totally agree. I’m just trying to brainstorm possible issues that may crop up in the future. Many times, the solution to a problem simply introduces a different problem.
Although as I’m considering it, the ease of making alts on this platform mitigates any potential issues, because the whole thing can be sidestepped by downvoting with an alt.
Overall, probably couldn’t hurt to bring that functionality to Lemmy and see how it goes.
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.
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.
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