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Yes they are. No matter the intent that is what they are.
Spot on. Upvotes/downvotes are for voting on the quality of comment only in theory. In practice, they are agree/disagree buttons.
No they aren’t.
No u
It would be interesting to see how people would behave if you had both a “Disagree” and a “Low Quality” button. Would it make any difference, or would people who dislike it also hit the low quality button out of spite?
It’s a bit of an unwinnable battle. People will always use it as disagree button
Earnest question- what is it supposed to be used for? I don’t downvote people very often, but I think I’ve only ever seen it used express approval or disapproval so that the score reflects community sentiment
How is it supposed to be used?
This post does not present the requisite context, which is that this community is a bit special in comparison to others. Read the sidebar text where it explains more how the mod wants people to use it differently. On Reddit there were some others like that, e.g. CMV, and had different-styled icons to help people realize that - before the days where people just expected every single sub to function identically so that they could bother not reading the sub rules before posting or commenting in it.
e.g.:
Do not downvote posts if you think they deserved it. Use the comment votes (see below) for that.
It’s a tool for curating the content, upvote posts you want people to see, and downvote those you think should be hidden. So stuff that’s irrelevant, factually incorrect, pointless, inflammatory etc.
Thinking that something should be hidden just because you disagree with it is problematic.
In addition to what others said, in comments the down vote is meant to be used on comments that don’t further discussion in good faith.
I used to subscribe to that idea, but I’ve since changed my mind. If the far majority use upvotes to mean agreement, then me upvoting a controversial, but well structured, opinion will likely be viewed as agreement as well.
It’s a nice idea to think the voting system is meant to promote discussion, instead of homogenise opinions in a community.
Yeah, that’s kind of the nature of communication I think, and ultimately votes are a form of communication :/
If people understand them to mean agreement or disagreement, that’s the message they’ll recieve regardless of whether it was the message that you were trying to send.
I guess if I wanna convey I appreciate someone’s contribution even though I don’t share their perspective I can always leave a comment; that seems like something I’d appreciate seeing in my inbox so maybe it’s worthwhile for me to make that a habit
Yeah that’s something I do sometimes as well. I usually just don’t vote on a comment as a third option for when I disagree with them, but don’t want to punish having a different viewpoint ^^
when a post doesn’t fit the community purpose or is generally inappropriate
Isn’t that where you use the report functionality?
I suppose it depends on how bad it is. e.g. if it’s a community for “videos”, and someone submits one with unmoving text that is basically an audio file, you could downvote it then for not matching.
Some software - like PieFed and some Lemmy apps - have automated features that rely less on human moderator intervention and more community feedback, to either auto-collapse or even auto-hide replies with downvotes below user-set thresholds. You can ofc disable these, but if you want them… they are there for you. Also they are immediate, as opposed to waiting until a mod wakes up and finds time to render a decision on everything reported since the last time they checked in.
I guess that’s usually also the basis on which I disagree with someone 😅 most of the time if I’m downvoting someone it’s because I think they’re being unkind, which I consider being inappropriate
Thanks for sharing your perspective with me :)
Ok but even if its for something else everyone else is still using it for that. And on another note, why shouldnt i use it to show disapproval?
However you want to use it.
I’ll stop using the downvotes as a disagree button when everyone else stops using upvotes as an agree button.
I actually think up- and downvotes are inherently asymmetrical in this respect.
Upvoting things you agree with is fine and a main use of the function. Why then is downvoting things you disagree with wrong? Because the purpose of voting is visibility, you upvote things you want people to see, like arguments you agree with, and downvote those you don’t think people should see.
Now if you believe in having an open discussion you don’t want to suppress posts just because you disagree with them. Disagreeing is fine, so downvoting is reserved for posts that detract from the conversation.
you upvote a comment saying they love cats
you ignore a comment saying they don’t like cats
you downvote a comment saying they hate cats because cats are evil
and you report a comment saying they eat cats
Two wrongs do not make a right
no, but three rights make a left.
Only if they are far rights!
Yes they do.
I always thought a downvote was just a silent “Booooooooooo!”
That’s what it should be, a “booo!” for lazy and willfully ignorant comments.
In practice most people downvote any take they disagree with, no matter if it was expressed well, written respectfully, and contributes to the conversation.
Apparently it’s the button you press to get banned from a community.
ASK ME HOW I KNOW
How I know?
So stuupid 😆
Fine, I’ll do it, how ya know?
Got banned for downvoting.
Wow. Truly never saw that coming.
A lot of those are joke downvotes, well mine was.
I downvote anyone complaining about downvote out of principle.
I first upvote it, so more people see it and it gets more downvotes, then i revisit later and downvote, which then decreases by 2.
Found Satan.
I’ll also down vote anyone using up votes as some kind of metric for their post/comment being inherently right/good
I’m the same! If the comment contains the word downvote in it, it’s a DV. I even downvote my own haha! It’s a silly little reminder to myself how little they matter
I even downvote my own haha!
You’ve upvoted this one though. 🤔
No, i’m one of the 6 (current) downvotes 8 people upped it. Not that it matters but aren’t upvote histories available? If you really want to see can’t you actually check on lemmy? I’ve heard about this but never tried
You haven’t on this post.
Is that link to this thread? It keeps taking me back here.
I don’t know what to tell ya, but you’re wrong fella.
Are you the type who apologizes when they are proven wrong or disappears?
Oh I’ll disappear! Although it’s usually from.my attention wandering. 🤪
The weird thing is, my “view votes” on that post is showing an upvote.
Most be some kind of federation issue - if I had to guess, you get an automatic upvote when you post (which federates) but if you then change it, this may not.
Mine wasn’t.
Communities trying to have alternate meanings for upvotes/downvotes must keep in mind that people scrolling posts across communities won’t generally notice the community and if they do they won’t read the rules and will vote however they want. Trying to force them to follow some silly community specific process is tilting at windmills and bitching about it is embarrassing.
Well, just add a ‘disagree’ button so there’s no confusion.
That’s just the Uber disagree button now.
I think this kind of voting system intentionally places the content people want to see (i.e. agree with), at the top which increases active users.
But it doesn’t stimulate healthy debate and definitely doesn’t encourage going against the mainstream.
Slashdot had a more interesting system that let only a select number of people rank quality and set a post category (like funny, informative, etc).
I think it’s a nice sentiment, but you can’t change emergent behavior just by saying “this is wrong”
This is wrong.
As a rule of thumb I downvote any post that mentions being downvoted or complains about the reaction to a post or comment.
I will give this whole thread a pass, though 🙂
Downvotes are definitely a disagree button and anyone denying it is just coping or lying about their own usage of it. Reddiquette was the worst thing that ever happened to internet culture
Reddiquette was the worst thing that ever happened to internet culture
I can agree that they end up being a disagree button in practice, but you’re saying they should be a disagree button?
what else should it be?
Almost anything else or nonexistent. Maybe a way of filtering lazy, unhelpful, or uncivil comments. Downvotes being a disagree button just seems blatantly toxic. Expressing disagreements calls for using actual words.
Not sure about that last bit. Do you know how many people are wrong on the Internet? Lemmy isn’t my job, yo: I can’t engage in a dialogue with with them all.
then dont engage with them. let someone else do it: do you know how many people are on the internet?
isnt that just disagreeing with the comment?
no. you might agree with someone saying, “this” but its lazy. “just google it” isnt helpful though you might agree with the sentiment. and someone might be making an argument you agree with, but being toxic and vitriolic. you should downvote those even if you may agree with them. it was called upvote and downvote because the feature would cause the comment to move up or down the chain to the top of the post or to be buried. disagreement downvotes are a fundamental misunderstanding and/or abuse of the system, thank you for coming to my ted talk.
Fr like if you don’t like the way people are using the downvote feature why make a post whinging about it and not just make your account on an instance that has it disabled???
aren’t they the instance admin themselves?
Even funnier tbh
Indeed, and this is a pinned post on Ye Power Trippin’ Bastards. Posters ask if their bans were justified. Downvotes bury the post, preventing an audience from making their opinion about it.
Sadly one can’t disable downvotes per community
Yeah if the problem is specific to a community I see how the software’s limitations could be an issue. I’m still unsure of what you were hoping to achieve with the post though.
Idk, it can be kinda exhausting but I guess I kinda just operate on the assumption that strangers online are gonna act like a bunch of insufferable contrarians (I’m not always above that sort of thing myself).
Because it has a legit use. It’s just also used to create an echo chamber.
If you believe that people can be just a little responsible, it’s better to have it around.
I disagree
