Downvotes = “I disagree” or “this is bad and you should feel bad”?

maegul@lemmy.ml to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 208 points –

I think I’ve settled on the latter. Disagreement is maybe best communicated by the absence of an upvote? And downvotes work best when they signal something that is just off base, and while not reportable, is not appreciated at a broad cultural level.

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I think voting based on quality of content (and NOT whether you agree with it) is the best approach for healthy discussions. If somebody is a low effort troll, then for sure downvote (and maybe even consider reporting).

OTOH, if somebody makes a well written and thoughtful post about why Totoro is the best Ghibli movie ever, and meanwhile you think Totoro is not even in their top 3, then I would still recommend NOT downvoting 😃

Yes. This.

Upvoting things you disagree with but are well put and compelling is the litmus test in a way.

Vote for quality = a better platform

Vote for personal appreciation = a toxic platform ?

The problem is that there's no way to enforce this in practice. All of these conversations about voting culture, with examples and pontificating always just come off as "everyone who drives slower than me is a grandpa, everyone who drives faster than me is a lunatic."

Downvotes will always be an "I disagree" button no matter what anyone wants or thinks.

Most people on Lemmy right now are not using them in that way. As we grow, misuse of downvotes will almost certainly become more common, but right now people are self-policing their behavior for the most part

Those of us on kbin can see who up/downvotes. I've noticed, anecdotally, that once this became more wildly known, there have been fewer downvotes that mean "I disagree", with them mostly being used on troll posts or obviously bigoted posts.

I'm aware of that and I like that behavior.

I'm also wary of potential downsides though. I think in smaller communities it could be a problem because people might start fights with each other when they check who downvoted them. But I'm not sure, at least now we have a good test environment on kbin, and so far it seems to be beneficial based on what you're saying.

I think it's overall good. A vote is no longer an anonymous action-- it's personal, just like leaving a comment supporting or disagreeing would be. While I don't think it would ever be appropriate to harass a person because they up/down voted something, I do think people should have to make the mental calculation about whether they're willing to have any specific up or down vote available for anyone to see.

I think it's done more good than harm and don't want to see them anonymized again... but I do have to say I've found myself withholding a downvote that I think was completely justifiable and deserved because I didn't want to be the first and only one and get shit for it.

I guarantee it won't be long before communities begin using this information.

Remember on Reddit how many subs would prematurely ban any accounts that participated in subs they disliked? That was entirely driven by the users, not the platform. Imagine if they had your voting information too.

I predict we'll start seeing throwaway accounts for voting, to disassociate your voting records from your posting persona.

This is kind of why, I feel like it is a bad thing. People can’t vote normally or are afraid to do so in a way.

Some won’t use the vote system to avoid possible trouble (arguments, downvoting back etc).

I personally have started to care way less about the upvote and downvote stuff. Reddit made it clear to me that it means nothing.

It just internet points and if something goes wrong, it’s all gone anyway.

Totally agree. I'm just trying to brainstorm possible issues that may crop up in the future. Many times, the solution to a problem simply introduces a different problem.

Although as I'm considering it, the ease of making alts on this platform mitigates any potential issues, because the whole thing can be sidestepped by downvoting with an alt.

Overall, yeah I'm in favor of bringing that functionality to Lemmy and seeing how it goes.

When I joined I rarely saw any down votes. Sadly this already got worse, depending where you are.

This is why the Beehaw way is a good approach. No downvotes only upvotes. Then people actually have to tell why they disagree.

Eh I still like downvotes and find myself just not enjoying beehaw as much without them. I mostly just don't get the moral panic over having a disagree button more than anything.

Moral panic? What? It's about healthy community dialogue and slightly how downvotes impacts the psyche.
If someone tells you why they dislike something you like, you're not doing anyone a favor by downvoting it.

You are ignoring how trolls operate in reality though. THey explicitly use "just having an opinion" as cover for shitting up a forum. Look up "sealioning."

But again, this is my opinion. People are far too concerned about the downvote button. And the fact that the above, completely respectful but seemingly controversial opinion already has downvotes kind of proves my point.

It would be useful if people actually used it to burrow trolls, sealions and irrelevant comments as intended, but as I've seen people can't be trusted with that because as you say: It becomes a "disagree" instead, that targets everything that people disagree with. It gets inane on political topics where useless comments for the right tribe gets immensely upvoted. "Covfefe" Yes, very informative. There could be alternate vote for agreement, funny, or troll mark.

There could be alternate vote for agreement, funny, or troll mark.

Yeah I like this, definitely a troll button next to the vote buttons would be really useful for users to self-moderate comments

Hmm, that is a good point. I really wish Beehaw would refederate with SJW so we could benefit from their activity and experience more. I don't agree with every decision they make but they certainly have insightful takes at times

This hasn't been my experience at all. Especially in lemmy.ml worldnews threads which get constantly brigaded by tankies.

Edit - it seems I replied to the wrong comment

I dont use that community so I haven't seen that.

Maybe try worldnews@sh.itjust.works instead.

I think you meant something else, that's a person not a community. Perhaps !worldnews@sh.itjust.works wait i thought the ! Was necessary now I'm confused augh

I used a hyperlink. Looks like this without the space (_)

[worldnews@sh.itjust.works]_(https://sh.itjust.works/c/worldnews)

It's definitely a community

Oh I assumed it was one guy because it's the same bot spamming those

I’ve upvoted comments that I disagreed with, but were well written an contributed to a good discussion. I only downvote for very low quality, spam or hateful comments.

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Low effort trolls want downvotes though. You’re better off just ignoring them.

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