Does the reddit style format breed toxicity?

Does the reddit style format inherently make for a toxic environment? Or is it a culture of toxicity from the influx of reditors? For lack of a beter example, on stackoverflow, when someone down votes you, it comes with a comment saying how to improve. On mastodon, people can’t downvote you. These platforms are a joy to use, lemmy is depressing if you post. Its depressing because every post or comment, no mater the quality comes with downvotes, and usually no criticism to accompany it, you are left not knowing if youve made a mistake, or if its just trolls, bots, or idiots. At the end you feel insulted not improved. What do you think?

neko,

Instance admins can simply disable downvotes. You don't need them.

Mastersord,

The karma/upvote/downvote system encourages engagement and gives users an idea of how others perceive their posts. It also encourages people to think about their posts and it helps keep garbage from clogging up the feed.

The problem is that posts are now “attention-centric” and that might lead to people posting stuff that’s more controversial or even “rage-bait” because it gets a reaction.

But honestly though, the toxicity was always there. It’s just that now people express it with an arrow click instead of a flame post calling out the OP’s mom.

I think anonymity or at least the perception of it on the internet breeds toxicity because it’s easier to hurt someone when neither party has to look each other in the eye.

lagomorphlecture,

The only place on here that I’ve noticed downvotes is on comments that have been obviously social media shills (reddit or meta) or right wing type comments that are not the type of thing a community should support in my opinion. I’m not saying you’re doing either of those things and if you’re being downvoted in another context I don’t know why.

That said, downvotes shouldn’t really get you down. If you’ve said something awful then you deserve them and should reassess your outlook if you were unaware that your views or attitude were unpleasant. If you’re getting downvoted on a tech related thing then I don’t know what that’s all about but I would try not to worry about it too much because it doesn’t really affect your life, it’s just a fake internet down arrow.

Joe_0237,

Thank you, interestingly the thing that prompted me to ask was a tech joke, all (4) down-votes, I removed a jab at Apple and added a picture and the the responses was positive. The lesson must be one of these: That we have mostly strong apple fans here; jokes need a picture even if it does not add anything; or people look at the vote total to decide their mindset while reading and the first vote was down by bad luck. Or some combination of these.

lagomorphlecture,

Oooooh yeah people love their apple and I think you have your answer!

HobbitFoot,

It is a problem of an Eternal September. Reddit was set up where the downvote was supposed to mean more than just disagreeing with people, but the influx of users, especially those only participating with Reddit by upvoting and downvoting, couldn’t be taught what you were supposed to do.

Joe_0237,

Eternal September

i genuinely love that i had to look that up, and i learned something! Thanks!

Barbacamanitu,

I would always cringe so hard whenever I saw someone on reddit talking about downvotes, lack of upvotes, or karma at all. It’s silly. Quit worrying about it.

Don’t change the way you express yourself just to make yourself more acceptable to the internet hivemind. The internet is a toxic place. Lots of people simply find joy in anonymously hurting others. Just comment and move on. And maybe reply to comments that are made in good faith.

Joe_0237,

Thanks for the advice

borlax,
@borlax@lemmy.borlax.com avatar

Yearning for affirmations via fake internet points is the toxic part, not the format of a website.

Barbacamanitu,

Took the words right out of my mouth. Take my downvote.

Joe_0237,

Yes, although your comment seems to me to be correct, it misses the point of the question, and the actual question has been answered quite well already by others. Surely the format is not in and of itself toxic, and I personally find it a little strange to think of a format as toxic, though I suppose one could create such a format. Rather, the question is weather the format of the website encourages or indues so called “toxic” behavior or leads to the perception there of, among groups of humans using software in the format in question. Maybe because “yearning for affirmation” is a near universal human trait and the format of the site provides its human users access to a convenient but unreliable metric by which they may measure the approval of their peers. Some of us suppress this drive for approval with to strong self awareness or self esteem or lack it entirely due to mental illness, but it is in almost every human, and of course, our need for approval is of course a double edged blade. It makes society possible, and makes us hate to take part at times.

slimsalm,

Imo, downvotes is just a disagreement. Being offended by it sounds like a “you” problem, we all have to deal with it.

Upvotes normally give me answers I need for at that moment. Downvotes makes me reassess myself.

I dont think you must read to much into the downvotes. Understand the situation why people might have downvoted you, understand why other people get upvoted, assess the situation. And most of all, understand that not everybody will always agree with you

Joe_0237,

What? people wont agree with me? LIES! (<-- that is a joke). I’m not offended, and i agree, i here, am a truth seeker looking for insight, thanks!

Kolanaki,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

I don’t think the format had anything to do with it, considering it was much more like Lemmy is now when I first joined 11 years ago and I’ve seen the same decline in other social mediums that didn’t share formats as Reddit. It’s just what happens when you get enough people together in one place. The abundance of dumb fucks and bad actors simply take over.

Scooter411,
@Scooter411@lemmy.ml avatar

I’m not trying to be negative here with you - but anyone complaining about downvoted will often get another downvote from me. Say what you want to say, stand by your convictions, and don’t worry about what the internet thinks about that.

saddlebag,

I don’t see the poster explicitly complaining about getting downvoted. How I read it is that they think that downvoting encourages people to be negative and weaponise their downvote. And, given what you’ve said, they’re spot on and you inadvertently proved their point.

Scooter411,
@Scooter411@lemmy.ml avatar

I saw the post more as someone who is too worried about what the group will think of their comment to allow for dissent.

That being said, what I meant about people who complain about downvotes was the old Reddit trope of “edit: really? Downvote me for asking a question?” On a comment less than an hour old.

Crackhappy,
@Crackhappy@lemmy.world avatar

I upvote anyone who disagrees with me, as long as they’re not a complete brute about it.

Joe_0237,

I’m not upset of complaining, I’m observing and philosophizing, this has been an intellectual pursuit, thanks for the reply

rm_dash_r_star,
@rm_dash_r_star@lemm.ee avatar

I don’t think it’s the format. Forums generally get toxic when they’re too big. The negative influence of a toxic user is much greater than the positive influence of a non-toxic user. The bigger the user base the more toxic users. Eventually it gets to a critical mass where you’re seeing enough toxic replies to make the whole platform seem toxic.

Reddit is 18 years old. Lots of time to attract toxic users. I wasn’t on Reddit from the start, but people have said Reddit didn’t suffer toxicity until after it was around 10 years old. Lemmy is four years old now so it will be a while. Though Lemmy may attract a smaller less toxic crowd and avoid toxicity indefinitely.

I don’t have a high opinion of community at Stack Overflow as it started out elitist by nature of its policies and rules. Yeah that’s going to breed toxicity right out of the gate. I have to admit Stack Overflow has been a really good resource for technical information at times, but its community is harsh. As much as I’ve used it to find good technical information, I’ve never made an account there or had any desire to post there.

Barbacamanitu,

That’s a good point about toxic users having a bigger influence than non-toxic users.

It’s easy to see a comment that you mostly agree with and just not upvote it. But seeing a comment that’s factually incorrect or toxic will both welcome downvotes.

Chrisosaur,

People breed toxicity, especially if you disagree with them. The more people a site has, the shittier it is. People suck.

makanimike,

Not necessarily.
A few years ago, when there was another Reddit Exodus people were suggesting to go to voat. But holy hell was that place toxic.
And tbh, maybe I just picked the wrong instance to sign up on, but right now, I feel like lemmy is more toxic than Reddit, too, despite still being a fraction of the size.
And people say to just not care about it. But it kinda does matter. Bullying and brigading can create an in-group and the rest. To the point that you can sway public opinion, even elections. tl;dr: OP makes a valid point

Barbacamanitu,

You think Lemmy is more toxic than reddit? I’ve seen the opposite so far. I wonder if this boils down to what communities we are a part of? It makes sense though, since most of lemmy is likely 30+ yrs old and have become jaded by reddit already.

Also, yes, voat was awful. It was mostly alt right assholes from what I remember.

makanimike,

the development on voat was incredible. once the hoards moved it went off a cliff within hours or a day or two.

I am fairly sure it is because of the instance I picked. when I click on Local instead of Subscribed my mood goes down. once in a while there is some spillover, and it seems to be following quite specific topics. So either I am out of touch with today’s youth (if the crowd on my home instance is representative), or there is a bias of the active users there and they are hungry for those topics.

Chrisosaur,

I don’t think our points are mutually exclusive. Small sites can be shitty while the trend remains that sites get shittier as they get bigger.

makanimike,

Fair point

Gorbachof,

Your opinion makes me angry 😡

Chrisosaur,

Fuck you. Imma tear down your fucking walls, Gorbachof.

Fthisguy,

I’m gonna fuck down your tearing walls gorbachof.

Chrisosaur,

Got ‘em!

lntl,
@lntl@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Screw you asshole. More people make a site better!

Chrisosaur,

Go buy a vowel ya fuckin prick.

Solgrund,

Personally core belief that people create and breed the toxicity. Use any system you want if people behave toxic it will become toxic.

Joe_0237,

a lot of it could be the no-face aspect, we where that a lot

SkyNTP,

For lack of a beter example, on stackoverflow, when someone down votes you, it comes with a comment saying how to improve. … These platforms are a joy to use

I don’t know what part of the internet you are from, but where I am from, Stackoverflow is looked down on as the quintessential example of toxic behaviour.

I’ve found some of the most dismissive people in tiny stack exchange groups, and experienced similar unexplained downvotes.

What SO, Reddit, and Lemmy maybe all have in common I think, is people tend to agree or disagree based on their convictions, as opposed to agreeing or disagreeing as a means of interaction.

I guess this puts the conflict and disagreement front and center. But at least then I know where people stand.

Perhaps it’s important to not take opinions too personally, and remember that incencere agreement has its own problems.

Joe_0237,

I disagree about SO, though I am not a fan of it for other reasons. Interesting thought about acting on convictions. Thanks.

dudewitbow,

Not necessarily toxicity, but echo chambers. Echo chambers could then be used to be toxic.

Joe_0237,

At least here in the free world we have to manually build echo chambers and “The Algorithm” does not build them around us without our consent.

schwim,
@schwim@lemmy.world avatar

As a former Redditor, I can only say that I’ve not yet begun looking at votes. Why do you determine the value of your post based on that? Make your post, read and respond to people who comment and have a great day.

Joe_0237,

That is the trap, isnt it. Votes are an awful metric for approval, and approval inst always needed.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • asklemmy@lemmy.ml
  • localhost
  • All magazines
    •
    Loading…
    Loading the web debug toolbar…
    Attempt #