Alright, I'm gonna "take one for the team" -- what is with the "downvote-happy" users lately?

Title. “lmao internet points” and all, but what is the point of participating in a community that sees assumptions and other commonly non-harmful commentaries/posts as “bad” this easily? Do folks in here are really that needy of self-validation, even if it means seeking such from something completely insignificant like internet points? I mean, if I wanted to have a “stepping on eggs” experience with someone (i.e “one false step, and everything breaks apart”), I’d look for a random chick to meet in a bar.

That, or “we reddit now”.

ProgrammingSocks,

I downvote posts that are arrogantly wrong. Really not much else unless it’s not relevant to the group at all.

bartolomeo,

After reading the comments and looking at how much each has been up/downvoted, I have no fucking idea.

notonReddit,

I downvote because it makes me hard

GreyFalcon,

I vote down stuff I don’t want to read. Nothing more than that.

Damaskox,
Damaskox avatar

something completely insignificant like internet points

Nothing has any value until someone gives value to something.
I give value to my reputation points - it's a force that drives me further into coming up with and posting content 😁 And sometimes I enjoy comparing my points to someone else!
I started fediverse with Lemmy but moved to kbin pretty much because of the reputation system being here.

Don't get me wrong though - I don't care that much about downvoting and I don't let it affect negatively on my behavior. At the end of the day, regarding other people in the Internet has more value to me than Internet points 😌

danielfgom, (edited )
@danielfgom@lemmy.world avatar

I typically never downvote anyone. I’ll up upvote a post if it’s saying what I was already going to say.

I don’t even check vote counts, not my own nor others. I’m just here to share opinions, others and mine.

I couldn’t give a dime as to whether people up or downvote me.

I don’t think it’s a healthy system. And I agree, as Linux users we should support community and different opinions, not squash them. The disagreements can often lead to a better solution for all.

makunamatata,

Same here. Does not make a difference, and it is amazing that people’s egos are hurt or happy about it somehow. But upvotes and downvotes is what drives all other social media: egos want more likes, more subscribes, more “friends”, they want that tribal approval. I find the fediverse to be less infected with FOMO. Drama doesn’t go long around here, doesn’t stick because there are no stupid algorithms feeding more FUD. I am starting to believe that this is where the top 1% of the social media hang out and chill. Here there are people that stick around for interesting conversations as opposed to “look at me”.

Karlos_Cantana,
Karlos_Cantana avatar

Why are so many people suddenly worried about down votes? They don't matter. You get nothing for a lot of upvotes, and you get nothing for a lot of downvotes. If you're so concerned about votes, I think that's a serious issue that you need to overcome, or you're going to have a very hard time in life.

Damaskox,
Damaskox avatar

I'd argue that having a negative reputation could affect (some) people's behavior here as well.

JubilantJaguar,

It’s because some people don’t appreciate being told to shut up after they put time and effort into writing a thoughtful comment.

That’s what downvoting is. It’s telling someone to shut up.

disheveledWallaby,

Some people need external validation. Personally I don’t care about votes. However I do give upvotes very often hoping to increase participation. I often upvote comments I disagree with when their in the negative as long as they aren’t being a dick. I think differences of opinion are healthy. It takes no time to read an opinion I don’t agree with and maybe upvote it when they are riding the down vote bandwagon. I like diversity and think our differences could be more valued. I don’t like the whole reddit style popularity contest down vote thing some think social media has to be.

I upvote posts that I have no interest in as well. I want people to feel welcome and create content. I’m far more of a lurker than a creator so it’s in my interest to have others creating content feeling happy about doing so even if I’m not their target audience.

I really don’t hit the down vote button much, if I really don’t like what they have to say I just scroll on. I want Lemmy to be a more welcoming place then reddit. So I try to make it so.

I have no issue blocking obvious troll accounts though.

x3i, (edited )

“Do folks in here are really that needy of self-validation, even if it means seeking such from something completely insignificant like internet points?”

But… is that not exactly the description of somebody who complains about downvotes?? As said by others; they should be considered exactly as valid as upvotes. If you feel like they prohibit you from voicing an opinion, I personally feel like that is a you-problem. Ask yourself of the content you posted is crap, if you feel it is not, simply ignore the downvotes and move on, they are just pixels.

Edit: I checked your posts, most downvoted ones seem to be clickbaity or images that you posted to the linux community. This is not something that vibes with that type of community, I would have downvoted that too. The ones on your technical questions seem unjustified however. Posting a code snippet asking people to execute it… I think that crap should even have been deleted by mods.

GustavoM,
@GustavoM@lemmy.world avatar

But… is that not exactly the description of somebody who complains about downvotes??

There is “Stop downvoting me! You are making me saddie-waddie!” and there is “Why are you folks enjoying something so stupid and trivial?”. Which the latter is my point, and not a whine. (And yes, when a negative feedback is constructive and has a point to back up it = not a whine. And a whine = a simple emotional outburst.)

JubilantJaguar,

But downvotes are not “just pixels”. They affect reputation and above all they affect the visibility of the actual comment.

So downvoting a good-faith opinion is not neutral. It’s censorious, it’s an expression of intolerance.

x3i,

By that logic, upvoting posts is equally as “repressive” as downvoting as it decreases the relative visibility of all other comments, I hope that angle shows the stupidity of that argument. I think we have a fundamental difference in understanding censorship, freedom of speech and intolerance here. If you want to play the self-victimization game, please do so on Reddit and not in the linux community on this platform.

JubilantJaguar,

What I want is for thoughtful and interesting opinions to be visible. What you want is for the right opinions to be visible, and the wrong ones to be hidden. That is the difference between us.

library_napper,
@library_napper@monyet.cc avatar

Mostly I downvote people who post screenshots of headlines or tweets instead of posting a link to the source. IMHO we need better moderators to delete that crap, but I do my part.

Draconic_NEO,
@Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

You should report them as well, downvoting doesn’t do anything to accelerate them being moderated, but reporting definitely does.

Xel,

Most of the time it’s the echo chamber needs that we all have, we want to see opinions that match our own at the top, and opinions that don’t match, at the bottom.

The issue is that social media is very aggressive on the trends. It’s easier for people to formulate a judgement (when the opinion is somewhat ambiguous, or not very strong) when someone else has done the actual judgement for you and upvoted/downvoted.

If votes where not shown at all, the comments would have wildly distinct amounts of support. It’s a pretty fun subject to study to be fair since it affects all of us very strongly so they are not just fake internet points in that sense. People’s days are sometimes dictated by the amount of validation or hate they get from strangers, we’ve been seeing this since Facebook and it will continue getting more relevant as we move more of our daily lives and activities to the digital world.

calypsopub,

I don’t ever go back and look at the votes.

doublejay1999,
@doublejay1999@lemmy.world avatar

You need to be much less fragile, or life is going to be hard. Really hard . I say this because you seem like a good guy.

cybersandwich,

Wasn’t the rule for one of the more popular Usenet groups: rule 1. Don’t be annoying 2. Don’t be easily annoyed

Tbh, that’s a pretty great foundation for any interactions on the web.

RandoCalrandian,
RandoCalrandian avatar

I love those two rules, when taken together. Seems these days communities just pick one, and both are worse off for it.

sour,
sour avatar

don't be annoying

RandoCalrandian,
RandoCalrandian avatar

don’t be annoying

sour,
sour avatar

because telling people their comment was rude is annoying

._.

RandoCalrandian,
RandoCalrandian avatar

You’re saying it’s not?

You didn’t even point out which parts were rude, making your criticism a comment on the entire content, which seems pretty rude

sour,
sour avatar

am already say is rude because word choice

RegalPotoo,
@RegalPotoo@lemmy.world avatar

always_has_been.gif

sour,
sour avatar

sacrebleu.mp3

WalrusDragonOnABike,

One of the most common I downvote comments is including things like "Edit: why all the downvotes?" in topics that aren't about the voting system (instinctually downvoted this topic, but un-downvoted), . But also just downvote things things are spammy, *phobic, defending genocides, etc.

gerdesj,

How should someone who expresses an opinion - that receives downvotes - request feedback?

roguetrick,

Don't worry about it. If you were really wrong someone would chomp at the bit to reply to you about how wrong you are. If they're not, you either have an unpopular or popular enough to be spam, opinion.

cybersandwich,

It’s the Internet. People who participate in good faith discussions probably aren’t downvoting willy nilly. Everyone else isn’t going to be swayed or give meaningful feedback anyway.

Downvoted get abused a lot where they exist. People dog pile pretty quickly. It seems like an image human characteristic. It’s just a fickle mob. The smaller the community, where members know each other by handle, are usually the best for actual discussions.

Draconic_NEO,
@Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

That’s probably the reason why instances like lemmy.blahaj.zone, [pricefield.org](pricefield.org], and reddthat.com chose to disable them. They aren’t constructive and more importantly they lead to people using them instead of reporting, which is really bad when it comes to enforcing rule violations.

WalrusDragonOnABike,

Most of the time, it feels like people are just saying "yall are just mad cause I'm right" but using different words because its often obvious why: an unpopular opinion or believed to be objectively false. These comments already have plenty of replies explaining why their comment is bad in some way. The only cases where there should be confusion about why is is if you are posting in a community that gets the same comments all the time and so its spam and you don't know it, or you said something that is being misinterpreted but for whatever reason you are unable to tell why and you haven't gotten any replies already (but for some reason are paying close attention to your internet points).

RandoCalrandian,
RandoCalrandian avatar

The downvote is the feedback

If people are downvoting and not commenting there is probably an obvious reason why.

Usually you just said some type of heresy in that community, like going to a NASA forum and saying it’s idiotic to still be trying for manned space missions to the moon or elsewhere.

It’s so anathema to the community they don’t even want to engage in a discussion about it, they just want to say “you’re wrong/I don’t like this” and move on.

Far more civil than how religions used to deal with heretics, imo

MigratingtoLemmy,

Hard disagree, people are lazy and valid counter-points get downvoted without recourse

faintwhenfree,

People are already demonstrating by downvotes hahaha

MigratingtoLemmy,

Indeed. Mommy’s little snowflakes can’t take a little Internet fuse up them

sour,
sour avatar

probably

fallacy of relative privation

someguy3,

Lemmy is a fickle place.

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