Okay, say there’s a post that says something bad… what do I (or you) do? Do you upvote it because it’s like “thank you for pointing this out”, or does your upvote mean you support whatever the post says (which is kinda the opposite)?
This is super important and not sure how many people know what they’re doing lmao
I see voting as decentralized moderation, not as an expression of agreement or like or something.
Upvote means “I want people to see this” and downvote means “I don’t want people to see this.”
100%. Content sorting is (to my understanding) handled by peer vote rather than any kind of central algorithm on Lemmy by default, so a vote is much less about agreement/disagreement, and much more about doing your part in the process of separating the wheat from the chaff imo.
In my view, even a (non-bot) lurker who only views/votes is still contributing to the community, because they still add another data point for sorting. It’s a collective effort that generates a collective content algorithm, so a person should vote accordingly.
This. It’s “I like this content” or “I dislike this content”, not agree or disagree. I get annoyed when people downvote because they don’t agree with an opinion, as it will then get less eyes. Downvote if the content is misinformation or just blatantly bad.
For me:
Agree = Up vote
Agree, but your comment was cringe = No vote
Agree, but you presented it in an ultra-cringy way that actually weakens the point = Down vote
Disagree = No vote
Disagree, but very good and valid point = Up vote
Disagree, and also cringe = Down vote
I think of votes as adding or decreasing visibility. Which is a little different than “I like this.” An upvote means you think other people should see a post/comment.
So unsavory but important things still deserve an upvote imo. That doesn’t mean you like the thing being discussed.
Upvotes and Downotes mean whatever you want them to mean.
If I think your comment could be in a script that Kevin Bacon would have accepted at any point in his career I upvote it.
If not, I ignore it.
If it mentioned Kanye in a good light, I downvote
I’ve heard worse justifications for up/down voting
I upvote anything that passes the bar of “This content is a positive addition to Lemmy” + my margin for laziness.
I downvote anything I consider pure garbage.
You are supposed to upvote things that:
- you like
- belong in the community it’s posted in
- upvoting favors it for the algorithm, ranking it higher and making it stay longer. If you want others to see the stuff, you upvote.
With comments, you are supposed to upvote things that contribute to the discussion, even if you disagree with it, but in practice people often just upvote what they like and agree with and downvote what they don’t agree with and there is pretty much nothing anyone can do to change that. So do what you think is right.
I vote up if I think it adds value to the discussion or should be seen more. When I down vote it’s because I feel is not adding value or off topic.
I miss the way Slashdot votes worked, where there are separate counts for each sentiment like agree/disagree, insightful, funny, etc. Maybe reaction emojis are the modern version of that?
