I came from Reddit where they definitely did matter. They don’t seem to hold any real weight here. Is this true for some or all instances? If they don’t matter, what are they for?
The up/down vote system directs the ranking algorithm on how to order posts and comments, and it visually signals to the user the relative popularity of a comment.
This, imo, is a wildly underappreciated mechanic for combating a lot of the harmful issues people associate with social media.
Most people recognize that discourse on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. is designed to divide and inflame people. the reddit-style downvote is remarkably effective at addressing this:
It does two key things in particular:
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Downvoted comments are down ranked and hidden, so people are exposed to less toxic content.
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If people do engage with unpopular comments, the negative score influences how people engage with them. On Facebook, commenting to defend Biden’s Israel policy will get elevated and create viscous fights. On Lemmy, it will get flagged with a virtual dunce cap. You can dunk on it, but there’s no point in arguing with it: we can all see that the argument is already over. Laugh and ignore.
Taken together, these discourage people from feeding trolls, and in doing so reduce the incentive to post something uncivil or stupid. It’s a remarkably powerful tool to address a huge problem, and I wish more people understood this.
Yes, yes and yes. Unless it is overrun/diverted by bots & shills, which is a corruption silently allowed by reddit to serve its corporate agenda. Reddit, being proprietary and closed-source, does not disclose the specifics of its voting system, which grants it some plausible deniability in the face of accusations of bias. Lemmy and Kbin etc have the advantage of being opensource, transparent, forkable, etc. whether or not you’re in line with its creator’s political standing.
Wonderful explanation! I will continue to up/down vote posts and comments as I see fit. 😊
Votes also make it very obvious when people react based on their wishful thinking — when a comment is factually true but is downvoted anyway, or vice versa. A good barometer of the sentiment in a community.
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There is no such thing as karma here, it’s more so to express approval/disapproval
I like the lack of karma. Generally I’m using the up/down vote options to express my dis/approval, just like you’ve stated they’re for. Given how different things can be across instances it seems I’ll just have to relearn how I view and interact with Lemmy over Reddit.
Aside from the much smaller user base and communities, I prefer Lemmy 100%. I’m learning to enjoy the smaller user base since it’s also lacking the huge amount of bots and trolls.
I thought up/down wasn’t for approval/disapproval, but to vote if the post was worth reading. In other words, a well written, factual article about a topic you disagree with should have a good number of up votes.
Theory and practice quite frequently don’t align in reality and humans are spiteful.
Hey, fuck you. I’m not spiteful!
Well then your username checks out
Upvoted because it’s an imprtant contribution, not because I agree with it.
It’s supposed to be that way, but Lemmy doesn’t always follow that system.
I’m fine with or without a voting system. It does seem to me that the instances which don’t allow downvotes seem a little bit better behaved though.
it influences the hot sorting
They just signify if a comment or post is good or bad. They do have some impact on how high up a post or comment is displayed within their list, ie a lot of upvotes will show up better on active or hot sorting, but that’s about it. Some instances like Hexbear.net disable downvotes, to force discussion if you disapprove something.
Thanks! This helps my understanding a good deal.
It’s been my experience on Reddit that you only ‘win’ a difference of opinion by not engaging people. And what you “win” isn’t Internet clout, it’s your sanity, continued semi privacy, and peace of mind.
Curious to see how Lemmy works out. Searching for a place you can actually engage in respectful disagreement or exchange of ideas. Even if someones’ ideas are different than your own, they help you think and explore, and if you come to the same decision, cool.
In general, you can’t normally convince your interlocutor, but instead onlookers. I talk a lot about Marxism-Leninism, and in my experience it isn’t the ones I talk with that change their minds, but those who see the convo as an outside observer.
There are still some sensitive mods who can see your vote history (within comms they mod) and ban you because they don’t like the way you interact with their comm. Conservative comms especially, they seem to think they deserve a captive audience.
Also note that anybody can use lemvotes.org to view post/comment/user votes in most cases.
Lemmy doesn’t enforce anything, but there’s no accounting for small people with an ounce of power.
Also interesting. I’m not opposed to my voting being public, although I have noticed I’ve accidentally hit the vote button without intending to and have no idea if I’ve done it without noticing. I’ll have to audit my own votes sometime to see.
Removed by mod
There are also some sensitive users who just go thru and downvote everything a poster posts, just because they have a personal grudge with poster.
Plenty of people on Lemmy agree that serial downvoters being banned from a community isn’t a bad thing.
If one doesn’t like a community, they can always just block it, rather than make it a mission to downvote every single thing in that community. IMHO, some people take lemmy way too seriously and get kinda unhealthy about it.
Like anything, a system can be used for good or used for bad.
Everyone please disregard DonaldJMusk, he forgets what account he’s signed in to. The old man thinks I’m out to get him like he’s not mocking me in his profile or anything. This is his sock puppet, one of many keeping the conservative comms astroturfed. Just look how soft he is, watching my voting habits in communities he doesn’t even run. He’ll probably post my vote history off lemvotes.org like I’m somehow denying downvoting this asshole, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Go ahead Donny, tell the world my sins.
I always thought his “tickle the quantum machine” was some right wing dog whistle.
I sent you a DM. Let’s compare notes.
What are you talking about? Was that reply meant for someone else? I didn’t bring anything up about donald musk or astroturing. I saw a discussion and posted a comment about up/down votes. Not sure what you are talking about.
They never mattered. Its a psycological trick to steal your attention. Some instances disable downvotes or voting at all
I’ve read about the disabling of voting and find it interesting. I enjoy the voting system because it gives me an easy way to interact with a post without having to comment. I usually only downvote if the post is low effort/slop, or the poster/commenter is just being a troll.
Thanks for your input.
They matter in the original intention of votes: visibility.
Votes get used to sort content.
they mattered on reddit? how?
Votes = karma. Low karma can keep you from being able to post in places and can get your post/comment hidden.
i haven’t heard of any place on lemmy restricting one’s ability to post based on your vote total, but i’d never encountered it during my many years on reddit, either.
if you get a lot of downvotes, and someone is sorting by “top” or “hot”, your post or comment will be further down the list though, and vice versa for upvotes. (though personally, i almost always sort by “new” on lemmy, or sometimes, “new comments”.)
They release a little burst of dopamine in my brain
No but there are some people who tend to act holier than thou because they have hundreds to thousands of meaningless points. I find out that they tend to be uptight assholes.
Anyone who places superiority on that is fucking silly.
Yes they are used to sort comments and that’s great. You also know if you’re getting into a circlejerk or a controversial discussion.
From what I remember, it doesn’t matter much on Lemmy. Don’t know the technical stuff behind it though.
Personally, just entirely hided the upvote/downvote numbers. Don’t care about it and it seriously means nothing. Turn off a device and the whole thing is vanished.
What? It mattered in Reddit? Are you sure its that same Reddit?
Give me your internet points!!!
