Simplifying Complexity, One Answer at a Time!
Rules
Ohh here is a good example: There is a person with a 2 year old lemmy account who downvotes every single video posted to !videos@lemmy.world
They never post, they never comment. Just downvote... for 2 years. I don't think they are a bot because of the timing, i just think they are just a deeply unhappy person
This place seems dead
I only ignore and block
Lol. Lmao even
can't handle negativity in others
posts a long negative rant
People don't agree on anything, ever. What you think of as "normal" is absurd to someone else and vice versa.
I've always wondered what posesses someone to down vote a genuine question, but I've made my peace with it by looking at it as "people will be people".
Today I try to read and contribute as I feel the urge. I don't follow many, if any, people or communities and just take the feed that comes past my eyes as a slice of life.
It's made for a lot less stressful experience and it allows me to (dis)engage as my energy levels permit.
I hope you find your way .. life is amazing and diverse and there's plenty of fun and interesting things to experience.
I engage with my projects and AI. It is a little world when one spends 80%+ of every day lying in a bed. I'm not myself if I go anywhere or do much of anything. This is truly the only place that I can really exist in in a voice I choose and can shape. The negativity is about like saying I should not exist. I tend to agree on that front. I'm largely here trying to convince myself otherwise. It is what it is. I'm a zombie that lost 8.5 of 9 lives already, there is very little left to lose.
The negativity is about like saying I should not exist.
It's your choice to see it that way.
Why do you worry about downvoting? Most people are utter idiots and the most reasonable opinions get downvoted. The bigger issue starts when moderators start removing comments they personally dislike and this seems to be more of an issue here.
I'm physically disabled and nearly a total shut in. This is my only real outside human contact. It is not really healthy largely because of this psychotic negativity. There are many aspects of Maslow's hierarchy that are beyond my control to remedy and solve. This place could help with some of that. When it fails for fundamentally unnecessary reasons of amplifying a tiny minority, I try to call attention to it. Some instance admins have already mentioned it is due to a half dozen people. I'm actively trying to show that those half dozen people are having a negative impact on more than just comments in a tangible way that promotes their removal.
I would propose for you to disable down votes. I'm not sure it's possible on a individual user level with she software you use but it's possible on a server level, so worst case scenario find a server where down votes are disabled.
I only see them when they are negative. That is still not an explanation or justification for anonymous negativity to strangers. This should not exist. It is psychotic. Anyone has a right to be stupid or or disagree. They have a right to an anonymous user name. They do not have a right to totally anonymous negative interaction with strangers. That should have never been created.
That should have never been created.
I agree.
PieFed automatically stops accepting downvotes from accounts that downvote too often or who have a very negative karma. This stops the worst 3.7% of users.
My unsolicited advice:
You cannot control the actions of others anymore than you can dictate their behavior. Work on your reactions. That is what you can control and improve - for you.
Most people don't actually use downvotes as a method of personal attack, but rather as a calibration. They see something they don't want to see, they click the down arrow like someone turning down the volume on the TV.
You really shouldn't take downvotes personally. They aren't meant to be personal, and most people don't use them that way.
This still does not address the fundamental existence of downvoting as a form of anonymous negativity to a stranger and what purpose it serves. This behavior is not acceptable under any circumstances in person. The existence itself is not justified at a foundational level. It is the anomaly that should be addressed. The normalization of this behavior is neurodivergent and should be corrected. Negative and opposing opinions are normal. Anonymous back stabbing has always been the refuge of criminals and cowards. Creating a path of least resistance to such a behavior is morally atrocious nonsense. The lack of philosophical awareness of this issue is reprehensible primitivism that should be an extreme embarrassment to any developer that implements the cultivation of sadism to shape a dystopian future where backstabbing and anonymous negativity towards strangers is normalized.
I only see them when they are negative
I got downvoted for a comment recently*. My instance has up/down on by default and to me that somewhat softened the blow... to see that it wasn't all downvotes but roughly a 1:2 (up:down) ratio.
EDIT: Also, you could of course have total+upvotes (or upvote %) if you wish, though I guess that doesn't work for posts which are mostly just the total (if set, upvote % only displays on hover)
*= in a very "why are you booing me? I'm right." moment, my 2 explanation replies were not, yet did not seem to change future votes (though maybe that was not the reason in the first place)
I understand. I don't instantly block someone, but if the choice is between arguing pointlessly and blocking them or the community, I'll block and move on. This does impact how useful the site can be for me, but I don't think using it less is a bad thing.
I've come to the conclusion that social media is simply bad for a person, because I think it amplifies negativity. I'm not sure if it's because we can't see each other, or if it's the asynchrony preserving what might have been a fleeting nasty thought and echoing it undiminished into the future, or that and more. I can't think of a way to fix it - at least, not a way other than being the change I want to see, but it's hard (as you've found) and takes a heavy toll on my emotionally-dysregulated ass. And sometimes I'm not the change I want to see - said emotional dysregulation is a bitch to manage.
Maybe that's what community is, a constant struggle to communicate effectively with other people. Or maybe platforms like lemmy and reddit only claim to offer community, but don't really. Maybe they can't, with all the pseudonymity. Maybe nowhere can, nowadays, with so many bad-faith actors seemingly infiltrating every online space that exists.
I'm sorry you feel beaten down by it, bud. I don't have answers, but you're not alone. As a maker, remember: everything you build will outlast the negativity. The blizzard of shit takes will wash away with time, posts being deleted to save space and so on. Your creations will be shared and preserved by the people that like them and find them useful. I take solace in that, personally; maybe you can find some too.
Edit: top lel. I haven't read this yet but the headline jumped out at me after having just posted the above: https://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2025-01-07/the-internet-hasnt-made-us-bad-we-were-already-like-that-the-mistake-of-yearning-for-the-friendly-online-world-of-20-years-ago.html
I think the negative people, love to be negative over and over again, to spread it. To say negative things. They find eternal energy with this level of interaction.
Well adjusted people don't need to let other people know they disagree, so they don't engage.
For what it's worth, lots of the down votes are from the same core group of people.
Online, we get the very skewed motivated populations engaging. It's a very negative, and very fanatic. In the middle I think most people just scroll and don't interact. On any media not just lemmy.
I've stopped trying to use Lemmy like a social group, and I now use it just as a journal. The journaling might help drive engagement, it might not...
@j4k3@lemmy.world for instance, I have 5/10 of the downvoters of your post already tagged (from previous behavior) as misanthropes.
People's opinions are expressions of who they are and unwelcomed opinions feel like attacks for people unaccustomed to debate. Westerners; especially Americans; don't like taking about "politics" in polite conversation so an overwhelming majority will remain unaccustomed to debate.
I agree that .world has low engagement as do all of the other non-political & non-technical Lemmy instances do and that fact is treated like another one of those unwelcomed opinions in those instances; that's why you're getting downvotes for pointing this out.
Lemmy was invented by and for people who exist at the intersection of leftist politics and open source technology and that makes them more amenable for debate but it could only work for you if you're capable of comporting yourself accordingly in such spaces if those views don't come naturally to you. If your politics or interest are too far out of sync with this core group of Lemmy users, then you either have to wait until the other social media platforms enshitify enough to force more people into Lemmy or go back to the enshitification yourself on their platforms.
I find it highly offensive when anyone tells me what I think or believe. You have no right to speak in my voice or write my narrative.
I love to debate. I love to learn and take in new information and perspectives. To assume is to make an ass-u-me. Do not assume you know me at all unless you have asked questions and are quoting or paraphrasing my statements in the context I made them.
I am not in any way resistant to negative feedback. I want to engage with people that are open minded and flexible in their thinking. Those that have a rigid mindset and parrot some narrative on the right or left are religious fools I waste no time with. Arguing belief systems is a fool's folly.
I take offense at anonymizing negative feedback. This is not accepted or normal human behavior. It is the realm of criminals and cowards to stab people in the back without the opportunity to confront their assailant. I do not accept this criminality as normal. If you wish to have a counter opinion you must do so openly and debate and defend your opinion. Anything less is barbaric primitivism.