It is objectively a lot more male than Reddit or other social media. Reddit has many issues, but lack of women is not one of them.
It is objectively a lot more male than Reddit or other social media. Reddit has many issues, but lack of women is not one of them.
Things change, though. Upvote/downvote was one of the many things Reddit and other places trialed over the years, and based on the success, stuck with it. Me, I barely spent any time on Usenet, but it occurs to me that the userbase was probably smaller. A much, much larger userbase probably fits better with upvote/downvote, so the comparison there is likely skewed, methinks.
‘Dopamine rush’ is exactly right, and I think it’s useful and informational, similar to the way that people react to your statements and ideas in real life. I do think they can have an ‘echo chamber’ effect and help promote the problem that a popular thing or opinion can be completely wrong, but to me that just means that upvotes/downvotes aren’t perfect, not that they should be completely discarded.
Not sure what you want me to do with a link to a book, but I don’t even agree with the premise of the title sentence. Reddit is still very useful to me, and I know of no other place that replicates the variety of content, there.
Ok, but I think you’re conflating two separate things; the usefulness of Reddit as a content index (which I agree is still unmatched) with whether the upvote/downvote mechanic is net positive. One doesn’t need to quit Reddit to acknowledge that the voting system consistently produces pathological outcomes at scale. “Brigading” is a literal Reddit phenomena
The Usenet comparison wasn’t really about scale. It was about the incentive structure. Upvotes/downvotes don’t just surface good content, they gamify participation in a way that systematically advantages emotionally resonant, tribally safe content over nuanced or contrarian takes. That’s not a flaw in implementation , it’s a feature of the design.
And “people react to your statements in real life” isn’t really analogous. In real life, social feedback is contextual, bidirectional, and has friction. A downvote is anonymous, effortless, and carries zero accountability. The asymmetry matters.
The link is to a book (available via Libby if you don’t want to pay for it) in case you wanted a primary source. In summary: Desforges’ core argument is that Reddit exploits operant conditioning to keep users chasing high-value posts through a flood of mediocre ones and that even people who claim not to care about karma are still shaped by it. It’s worth a read.
Justin Rosenstein - one of the engineers who actually built Facebook’s Like button - has publicly said it produces what he called “bright dings of pseudo-pleasure,” and has since restricted his own use of it. Leah Pearlman, who co-created it with him, has said the same. These aren’t outside critics; these are the people who built the thing.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/years-on-creators-of-facebook-like-button-give-idea-thumbs-down/
End of the day: if you find it personally useful, I believe you. I think the problem is in aggregate behaviour. Apes together…dumb.
I feel like they’re distinctly separate things, and I thought I’d communicated as much. Oh, well.
That seems like… a little much. I do agree that upvotes/downvotes indeed gamify the system, but on the whole would say that the end-effect on Reddit results in a big bunch of hoomons acting in typical hoomon ways, which is with deep undercurrents of fickle, ignorant, selfish, feel-good behavior.
Yeah, I get that, but I do observe that there are advantages to upvote/downvote that indeed work better on a larger scale. I’m not sure they’re really needed on a smaller scale.
I’d say I agree with most of the things you wrote, but remain unconvinced that upvote/downvote is so absolutely toxic as to merit tossing. And of course, I don’t think it’s going to happen, anyway.
Aggregate behaviour amongst naked apes? Yeah, I would tend to agree. Now what?
I’d argue that’s a restatement of my position with better adjectives :)
Well, 2 options:
Kill all the apes (or just wait 15 more minutes)
Enjoy Lemmy
I’m trending towards 2 myself
We’re doing a great job of that ourselves, so mission accomplished?
I’ve been on Reddit for 10yrs, and the Fediverse for the past 2.5yrs, and don’t see that changing anytime soon. I’m also skeptical as to the FV ever matching Reddit in terms of variety and bulk of content. The situation just is what it is.
George Dubya, is that you?
…from your fingers to God’s eyeballs.
He didn’t patent that expression, far as I know.