Do you rarely vote on anything at all?
Do you upvote when something is interesting but rarely downvote? Do you downvote when something isn’t interesting but rarely upvote?
Do you vote to signal agreement or disagreement?
Do you vote to encourage insightful replies regardless whether you agree or not?
I rarely interact with the voting system on sites, aside from the occasional missclick, that is. While I think it can be useful when searching for answers or tutorials, especially on topics you’re not familiar with and can’t judge competence vs BS, I think in more social spaces it leads to both echo chambers and karma farming, and it feeds social media addiction by giving you little validations for every upvote you receive.
I also think it prevents people from having more meaningful interactions. Rather than replying with 'This was insightful", “I disagree because…” or “that was really funny” You just make a number go up or down.
I down vote things that are factually wrong. If it’s a matter of opinion and I don’t agree, I take no action. If someone is being an asshole, or if their comment/post has absolutely nothing to do with the post/community, I will down vote. I can’t always tell what is AI generated, so I might end up voting some of those, but my preference is to down vote AI generated content and bots.
I rarely downvote, only for people being assholes, misleading content, AI slop and so.
Upvote: agree/made me laught/is important/is good post or comment
Downvote: disagree/false info/unfunny
For articles, if I think it needs attention I upvote. If it’s garbage shit I down vote. For comments, I usually use as agree or disagree.
I upvote nearly everything, helps drive engagement and keep Lemmy healthy.
Its pretty rare that I downvote, guessing a 90/10, 0or 95/5 split
I’m on blahaj zone and we don’t have downvotes, so I can’t downvote anyone which honestly feels a lot healthier to me personally.
upvote things I enjoy or agree with.
I downvote things hate or disagree with.
one exception though. if what they said is correct or justified, even though I disagree or hate it, I’ll do neither.
for example, if a comment said “all men are pigs”, I wouldn’t do anything. technically wrong but also not wrong.
if a comment said, “all men are pigs and deserve to die.” it would get a downvote, unjustified violence against a group is unreasonable and illogical.
if the comment said, “my husband is a pig. he squeals every time I peg his ass.” that would get an upvote, because it’s hilarious.
I upvote more than downvote. I don’t even downvote trolls and usually reserve the downvotes to obnoxious commentators.
I also think it prevents people from having more meaningful interactions. Rather than replying with 'This was insightful", “I disagree because…” or “that was really funny”
I agree. I see perfectly reasonable comments with hundred of upvotes but with one downvote and it makes me wonder why (maybe that one downvote is being petty for the sake of just having a downvote).
Downvoting is a lazy way to disagree. Back when Reddit was great, the etiquette was to explain why you downvoted and disagree, but spez did away with the guideline.
For all that I talk a big game about “contribution to healthy discourse”… I use them as “I want other people to see this” and “I don’t want other people to see this.”
That’s a good way to think about it because that’s what it does. More people see posts and comments that have more points.
Trolling, support other trolling, love art, fuck AI.
I upvote things I like. I don’t downvote things I don’t like, I only downvote lies, misinformation, or harmful takes.
This and I also downvote people clearly being dicks. To me it’s not all about the content, but also how you decide to discuss something and how willingly you are to have a reasonable discussion.
That was the original intention of the voting system, but most people don’t read and follow the rules and guidelines, and presume the system is about popularity contest.
I consider unwarranted dickishness to be a subset of harmful takes
This. Upvote what you like, is helpful, particularly informational or positive input. Downvote insulting content, lies, bad faith…
I’m downvoting this because I don’t like it! /s
I generally upvote stuff to reward engagement and effort. Anything I pass by that looks like a creative work someone is putting forth themselves I’ll upvote. Also pretty much any response to anything I post or comment on. Often times comments I respond to as well.
I only downvote utter bullshit, i.e. people spouting things that are categorically not true, or bad faith arguments, or just people being argumentative in general when there’s no reason to be so.
I don’t give enough of a flying fuck if we hypothetically disagree, only if your position is so odious that it is in fact literally objectively wrong or intentionally misleading.
Or utterly useless bots that no one asked for. I’ll downvote those, too, but I haven’t seen too many of them anymore in the corners that I regularly haunt.
largely agree with this
- good faith arguments or just good quality comments or posts get upvoted
- lazy comments or posts get nothing
- bad faith or unnecessarily combative or ill intensioned comments get downvoted.
I almost never downvote a post, I’ll either block the instance, community, or person instead - I want a good feed
I will never understand the blocking mentality. Never done it. Online since BBS days and it has not been something I even consider doing.
The things I see are fine. People change their minds. I am never forced to engage with anyone thing I don’t want to anyways that’s what scrolling down is for.
Subscribe to what I like and simply ignore the rest.
Ya I get that, I just would prefer to see some content over others by a lot, like I don’t care that bdsm stuff is on the internet, but I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to see furry art, zero problem with it existing, just don’t want it in my feed that’s all.
I wouldn’t see any of that because I don’t subscribe to it.
But I get that use case, block is the new name for filter I suppose.
I was thinking mostly about blocking commenters.
Ahh ya so I try to browse all communities, because who knows some new community might be interesting and I don’t want to miss it
Yeah I just occasionally click on communities and browser them without posts in an alphabetical list.
Totally makes sense.
It’s a Like/Dislike button, and I find it pretentious to treat it any other way.
Downvote button disabled. Wish I could also disable the upvote button.
I think down voting things you disagree with or want to discourage is a perfectly valid way to use them, and better in most cases than responding and further escalating a shit fight.
If something you post gets heavily downvoted, that’s information. You now know that your opinion is unpopular in that community. If you get down voted frequently and it really bothers you, it might be time to do some introspection on what you think or how you present yourself. Not all opinions are created equal, and you’re not entitled to people’s attention.
I can appreciate the opinion that discussion would be better, but I don’t think it’s realistic. Many times bad takes are coming from people who have no intention of listening, and just want to spew hate or argue. Down voting and moving on is a much better use of people’s time than arguing with these people. If for no other reason than preserving one’s mental health. It sends a message without feeding the trolls in other words.
As for how I use them? Funny/uplifting/valuable posts = upvote Don’t get it/not interesting to me = nothing Shit take/spam/obnoxious person/wrong community = downvote
If you get down voted frequently and it really bothers you, it might be time to do some introspection on what you think or how you present yourself.
Or do some reflection on where you’re sharing your thoughts. An anti-AI community won’t respond positively to someone hyping Google’s new image generation model, for instance.
If I’m getting downtown in a community, it’s a sign that maybe it’s not a good fit for me.
Exactly. Read the room in other words!
