Fediverse

So one thing I've noticed that I like quite a lot about Lemmy is that heavily downvoted comments still seem to show up when they're embedded into a comment chain. I've had conversations here where I am accumulating 5-10 downvotes per comment, and it's fine; everyone can still talk to me, I can still talk to everyone, yes I register your disapproval, but I still get to converse.

I believe this approach to be vulnerable to Sea Lions since "debating" facts with someone not tethered to, or respecting of reality is a lesson in futility since the time/effort wasted is the goal.

While I agree with the idea of everyone getting the opportunity to be heard and form an opinion, I disagree with your rationale.

relevance to a conversation is a subjective and decided on the fly depending upon how much you know about a subject you or how well you understood what someone was saying.

How someone communicates is defined even more subjectively with more unique flare, accents, lingo, etc which can further obfuscate intended meaning.

Etc etc. idk why we’re trying to categorize and make point systems for fucking everything. I would much rather have a comment section with a sort by controversial button to see where the most “debate” is going on rather than trying to prioritize one comment over another. The bulk of the post is the information, the comments are for communication and discussion and shouldn’t be taken as factual or anything other than subjective anyway.

Another thing to note is that downvotes are, in effect, public. One hopes that this will have a chilling effect upon individuals and groups who have been gaming the karma/visibility system over on reddit for years.

I don't think that this is the correct way to address this problem. While I agree that downvotes shouldn't be used indiscriminately, simply urging people to use it in another form isn't going to do much. If people were better, the world would be better. The problem is that people aren't better, and so we have the problems at hand.

I don't know, I think a systemic approach to problems is usually a better way to a solution. Just to give a quick idea, which might be a bad one at that, I think that Lemmy could, by default (with the option to toggle the option), ask the user to give their opinion whenever they downvote. It's simple and small, but could be the push that people need to actually engage in conversation rather than lazily pressing good and bad buttons. I'm not sure it would work, but I think it's a step ahead of simply yelling to people "Be better!" and expecting things to change. Just my two cents, though.

One thing that helps here is that I can see exactly how many upvotes and how many downvotes a post/comment has, instead of an aggregated amount. It adds a level of responsibility, I think?

Also if you don’t like it, there are instances like Beehaw that don’t even allow downvotes.

I didn't find it very hard to change how I downvoted comments. Of course what counts as contributing to a conversation is subjective, but I don't think that should stop people from using it to decide whether to upvote or downvote. I downvote low effort comments, inflammatory comments, rude comments, and comments that spiral into tangents about unrelated topics. I upvote comments using my own judgement to encourage healthy discussions where people contribute differing ideas. I may not agree with every comment I upvote.

Downvoting is fine if you disagree but not just for the sake of it.

Counterpoint: a lot of people on Reddit complain about “you’re just downvoting because you disagree with me” when they’re being downvoted for spreading misinformation, being unnecessarily hostile or condescending or holier-than-thou, posting blatant dogwhistles, or sealioning.

I’d rather see people in general take a step back and stop taking downvotes so personally. You will get downvoted sometimes. It’s not always an ideological attack.

You know those discussions that go further down, so get less and less votes because ppl don't read the whole damn thing, until they become a back and forth between two people? Remember how many of those end on a single post with 0 upvotes. I hate those. I hate when the Downvote is only used to express "I have nothing to say, but I vaguely disagree"-downvotes.

Agreed. I only downvote if the comment is truly offensive, purposely unhelpful, or an obvious troll. Unfortunately, as you mentioned, old habits are hard to change. Everyone will have different opinions, and communities are a means of expressing them. As a whole, I believe the fediverse is trying to foster healthier conversations than other social media platforms which often encourage toxicity.
Thank you for bringing this subject matter to light.

Agree. And I’ll add that part of the reason I lurked Reddit for so long was getting downvoted for no known reason. I know I shouldn’t care, and some people are just inconsiderate, but could you imagine how that would be IRL? Imagine you’re at a party where people are chatting and laughing, you try to get in to the conversation and say something relevant or funny. One person looks at you coldly and gives you a thumbs down and the rest of them shrug and continue talking. Fucking ouch. At least tell me why, or maybe pause for a sec you’re having a knee-jerk reaction and consider your motive, and desired outcome.

I will just downvote and move on with things that I don't really want to see in a community like low effort posts. Also, if there is already a good response on why some post is wrong I will just add votes since adding my own reply doesn't add much.

I think downvoting to say “I disagree with this is valid in certain cases,” like when u/spez says some stupid shit. Or when bigotry pops up, I don’t want to engage with racism or bring more viewers to it. I want to downvote and move on.

Disagree with me if you want but I think we should be referred to as Motorheads.

The Do Your Part community, I think its here on World, has been collecting content like this, if you would care to archive it there.

for my own mental well-being, I turned off scores in the Lemmy desktop settings (go to your settings and un-check the Show Scores option)

the platform is so much more enjoyable when I don't see post/comment numbers, just the content

the first mobile app to implement this feature will get my premium purchase

Technology is a history of users using things in ways the developer didn't consider. Honestly if it's something that isn't of value to the site, I'd imagine it should be on a report button, not a downvote button.

But you just can't convince end-users to do things the way you want. Either the system let's them do it or it doesn't. And half the time if the system lets them do it, they'll do it even if it sets fire to the system.

I don't think it's of any value to try to change user's choice of using the system, but rather embrace it and find ways to both better enable the system to use it (and perhaps curb some things you don't like about it) and then figure out what went wrong with the original intent and try to reimplement that.

Be a better lemming and realise this is the fediverse and not just lemmy. Why so specific when it is relevant to all users of the fediverse?

The intent might be there, but functionally it's a vote of good or bad. The notion of it being up versus down, left/right, red/green doesnt matter, people want an easy way to express an opinion. Look at all the issues it caused when YouTube removed the down vote and people could no longer express disapproval with a click. If someone is being activley detrimental then mod actions come into play at that point.

Some instances removed the downvote button. And I think it's a good decision, personally speaking. If you like it, you upvote it. If you don't like it, move on. Less toxicity, and less emotional damage when someone has rejection sensitiveness.