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What factors do you think contributed to the "Reddit Hivemind"? How do you believe it can be avoided? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I've been seeing more often (and others have posted the same) that some of the elements of "Reddit etiquette" seem to be taking over here. Luckily I can still find discussion comments but it seems the jokes and general "downvote because I disagree" are slowly taking over.

So the question becomes is it the size or the functionality of the site? The people or popularity? What's your thoughts?

edit: should I change it to Lemmy-hivemind? Exhibit A: the amount of downvotes without a single explanation (guessing it's anything to do with Reddit being talked about).

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

The universal problem is that there’s no shared definition of what a downvote represents. Is it “this is spam and should be removed”? “I don’t like this”? “This doesn’t belong here”? “I want to see less of this”? “I disagree”?

That’s not even a Reddit problem - it’s innate to any social media voting apparatus. Extend it to Facebook, even. Does the laugh reaction mean I’m laughing with you or at you?

Most comments and posts I’ve downvoted have been because I accidentally swiped too far right and my upvote changed to the downvote action and I didn’t even notice. So those downvotes don’t even mean anything!

I think the right answer is to stop worrying about votes. Even if they all mean the same thing they’re still meaningless. It’s better to change your post and comment sorting setting than to try to social engineer a way out of it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Reddiquette says

Vote. If you think something contributes to conversation, upvote it. If you think it does not contribute to the subreddit it is posted in or is off-topic in a particular community, downvote it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

If people followed that there would be no problem.

Unfortunately, the downvote button is mostly used as an "I disagree" / "I don't like your opinion" button.

Vice versa, I think Reddit upvoted a lot of the same old boring memes/jokes with the idea that maybe they would benefit if they get there first then next time.

Any post related to WWII, Top comment: "I did nazi that coming" 10,000 upvotes.

It's not that bad on Lemmy but I have noticed an up tick in non helpful very unoriginal jokes in threads with serious topics.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Most comments and posts I’ve downvoted have been because I accidentally swiped too far right and my upvote changed to the downvote action and I didn’t even notice.

I actually changed it so that if I swipe too far it saves the post/comment and to downvote I have to swipe too far the other side to downvote. I think that makes more sense