People still are arguing for downvotes here on Lemmy. I think they are poison to a good community. They are not helping to moderate - they are silencing opinions and creating echo chambers.

[–] blueskiesoc@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)

My philosophy on downvotes:

If I don't agree with someone here, I upvote anyway. Not because I'm a Pollyanna, but because I'm happy they're here and supporting Lemmy by posting and commenting. I really want Lemmy to stay up and stable for a long time and provide what Reddit used to provide for the wider community. Reddit still does, but hopefully we can too. I'm talking about political and health issues.

If it's a mean comment, I do nothing and move on.

If something is just messed up, that's a message for the mods. I've messaged once so far. Someone posted information about a person (image and real-life contact info) and said they were performing cosmetic surgery on puppies. The image was of the person flipping the bird, so it was clearly made as a hit piece. Mods got rid of it within a day.

[–] Elkaki123@vlemmy.net 8 points 1 year ago

For me while scrolling through a threat I upvote those that I agree with and leave alone those that I disagree, unless it's done in an asshole kind of way which I kind of despise.

But if I make a post I do tend to upvote everyone which I kind of justify as "rewarding" people for interacting with me.

[–] thesanewriter@vlemmy.net 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I follow a similar philosophy, except I do downvote the mean but not rule breaking content. While it's not bad enough to justify removal, I do still want to discourage people being mean on this platform. For most disagreeable opinions, I'll either move on or reply with my point of view.

[–] blueskiesoc@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

Lemmy.world 👍

image of abraham lincoln being misquoted with be excellent to each other and party on dudes from bill and ted's excellent adventure

[–] varzaman@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

As Reddit has proven, this is not how the masses use downvotes. I have seen unpopular, but harmless opinions be downvoted.

I have seen people getting downvoted heavily by saying they don't like x game. That creates echo chambers.

[–] jemorgan@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah the issue is that the upvote/downvote binary is used for more than just (good contribution)/(bad contribution).

Back when Reddit was small enough to have community values, reddiquette was taken semi-seriously. But with the push for more users over the past 5-7 years, that’s all gone out the window.

I’ve thought a bit about how that issue could be fixed in a way that still allows content to be rated by usefulness democratically, and I’m pretty convinced that for that to happen, there would need to be an upvote/downvote and an agree/disagree.

Order content by vote delta, but display the agree/disagree counts on the content.

Would be interesting to be able to see content that makes good arguments but that is largely disagreed with instead of having that content disappear at the bottom of the page.

[–] Num10ck@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

various reaction choices seems to be a better communicator.. like on linkedin. i'd rather flag something as interesting or funny or ugh..

[–] jemorgan@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah, and that would give people an outlet for when they want to express how they feel about some content without having to muddy the default prioritize/deprioritize-based sorting.

[–] blueskiesoc@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

cartoon image of man saying you're right with a line going from his mouth to his ears representing an echo chamber

[–] Jumpinship@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Different people see the meaning of downvote in a different way. I don't always use it negatively. I think of it now as voting in general terms. Sometimes I do use it because I strongly dislike the comment. I guess maybe we need 2 different downvote options lol

[–] blueskiesoc@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Like two different car horns.

One for, "Hey, I'm over here. Don't hit me." And one for, "HEY, I'M OVER HERE! DON'T HIT ME!"

[–] overzeetop@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was a bit baffled by your post because it seemed odd, but it's the second time today I've encountered someone mentioning it. It appears that lemmy.today is a no-dv instance; I presume it's a server switch option. The rest of the instances I'm on all have up/down voting, and kbin, of course, has boost/up/down. Not that there's anything wrong with it but, just so you know, it's a feature of your instance and not lemmy-wide.

[–] mrmanager@lemmy.today 4 points 1 year ago

Yup its configured on each instance in the admin settings.

[–] thesanewriter@vlemmy.net 2 points 1 year ago

I think they theoretically can be used well, and I've tried to be more reserved in how I use them here on Lemmy, but I agree often times they can become culturally toxic. I'm glad Lemmy has a better culture so far, we're really building something great here I think.

[–] Jumpinship@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Maybe, but it didn't help with youtube. I'm giving a respectful downvote to you because I think I disagree

[–] mrmanager@lemmy.today 1 points 1 year ago

Sure go ahead. :)

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I miss when downvote was a "this doesn't contribute to discussion" button, not a "disagree" button.