Because to me, they seem like de facto "Agree and “Disagree” buttons, whether or not it was the intent.
dopamine button
Yes. That’s how people use it, so that’s what it is. The original intention doesn’t matter.
That’s how I treat them. Maybe with a bit more nuance: I’ll upvote for something funny, informative things, or general good takes. I’ll downvote if someone has a bad take, is unnecessarily mean, or is generally incoherent.
If the comment doesn’t spark a reaction I just keep scrolling.
What you say and what you describe are not the same. Your explanation is literally how it was explained on the other site. So you are better than you think you are. =)
And I do it the same as you. Something I disagree with or don’t like but is reasonably argued and not mean or full of any -isms? No vote from me.
Often too I’ll upvote a highly downvoted comment because I don’t think it deserved to be downvoted as much as it was, even if it’s one I’d otherwise downvote. Unless it’s horrible, in which case I’ll pile the fuck on
It a comment was well thought out but I disagree, I comment or keep scrolling.
People are too lazy to do that, so they downvote.
They shouldn’t be used as such, but frequently are. It is even more difficult to distinguish between disagreement and insufficient argumentation.
Sometimes. I think the meaning of the arrows are somewhat contextual.
Downvoting spam for example isn’t “disagreement”, but it is a kind of disapproval.
Upvoting your post isn’t “agreement”, but I do it because I think it’s an interesting question (maybe a kind of approval)?
If we generalized I guess we could ask whether upvotes are always relating positive emotion and downvotes always relating negative emotion?
I wouldn’t “agree” with a joke
That is, are upvotes “yays” and downvotes “boos”?
I still upvote posts in news communities informing me of terrible things, so upvote isn’t necessarily a yay. Downvote might be boo, though
I honestly wish there was a moderation system like Slashdot. You got a limited number of points each week, and you could vote comments “Insightful, Informative, Funny, Overrated, Spam” etc. Comments, etc could go up to +5 or down to -1; and you get a slider to determine at what point value comments are hidden at (+4, +2, etc)
It makes it so people can’t be buried into the ether by brigading (they’d have to keep up a sustained downvote campaign to continually knock it down to -1), and can ‘come back from the dead’ so-to-speak, and also allows categorization of comments and may even allow the filtering of joke-comments so that conversations stay on topic or just so that you engage with the serious content instead of low-quality stuff. This encourages people to comment more genuinely and productively.
That’s really interesting, but honestly I think I like the simplicity of upvote/downvote better. It seems like it would take a bit of tuning to get the Slashdot system to work as intended.
Well, the simplicity of the upvote/downvote buttons are what also cause the drawbacks of people using the system as “Agree” and “Disagree” buttons. I’m a solutions oriented guy. Everyone always bitches and moans over what the problem is, and nobody ever suggests solutions.
My upvotes are for posts I like, downvotes I don’t really use except when the content is factually wrong or misleading
I’ll use downvote if the person is overtly racist, homophobic or just mean. Name calling or being just unpleasant. It’s ok to not agree. It’s not ok to dehumanize someone for a different perspective.
They do sometimes end up used as agree/disagree buttons, but they’re intended to be more about whether it’s good content that provides some value, and downvotes are when you don’t provide any value. This leave room for disagreement without downvoting a well written post that does add to the discussion.
I use downvotes for spam, and posts/comments what are just plainly wrong, incorrect, misleading or dangerous. Stuff I think is good gets upvoted, and stuff I disagree with but there’s otherwise nothing wrong with it, I don’t vote.
No, that’s the [other place] mentality. Upvote if you want to increase visibility to the post. For example, there may be a post with a link to an article about some politician doing something I disagree with. I would still upvote it if the post allows me to discuss why I disagree with said action.
Downvote if the content is harmful to the community (for example spam, overt racism, etc).
This is precisely how I use up and down votes.
I would also, as an example upvote something I think was incorrect if the was an insightful reply to it I felt people should see.
To clarify, I’m not talking about a troll post with a clever “dunk” reply.
Trolls always get downvoted.
No, that’s the [other place] mentality.
Nah, it’s the same exact nonsense here too.
"Agree and “Disagree” will just leave us in a Lemmy bubble.
They should be more about “good post or bad post”, so something that may be disagreeable gets upvotes if it is well stated.
Reward thought, creativity, etc, and let us all learn.
Agreed.
- Upvote: Adds to the community.
- Downvote: Doesn’t belong in this community.
Disagree
Downvoted
Agree. Upvoted.
That would be nice but, no, it’s the agree/disagree button just like Reddit. There is honestly very little difference between Lemmy and reddit. Mostly just the numbers.
When you upvote a funny comic, does that mean you agree with it? Do you agree with cute cat pics?
It is more than just agree/disagree.
It wasn’t meant to be an agree/disagree button on Reddit either.
It’s meant for upvoting posts that contribute to the topic/community and downvoting stuff that doesn’t, such as spam or trolling.
People get emotional over a comment and click the downvote as it makes them feel empowered, that’s how it always ends up. Maybe just having upvotes only would work better.
Yep. Didn’t work out that way though just like it didn’t work out that way here
They should be more about “good post or bad post”, so something that may be disagreeable gets upvotes if it is well stated.
I don’t care how well stated some anti-vax or flat-earth bullshit is … It’ll get downvoted regardless because I disagree.
That would just be misinformation, something downvote was intended for.
That would just be misinformation
Sure, according to us. But you don’t actually need to be right to think you’re right. If someone believes the earth is flat, they’ll downvote “globe-talk” as misinformation, just as it was intended! So it all just comes back to (dis)agreeing.
Of course, but these examples are provably false. Flat earthers have accidentally disproved themselves many times.
If they are just having a giggle then whatever, but some are serious and that is damaging to the legitimacy of science, which is a dangerous path.
If the poster is open to discussion, perhaps some chat could make them reconsider their position. So I wouldnt necessarily downvote. Context is important, so I still wont just use it as a disagree button.
I know and I chose those two examples to illustrate that people will even disagree with stuff that is blatantly factual. So it just gets worse if you enter murkier territory, like politics or ethics where there is no firm factual basis.
I’m sure you won’t have to search too long for a very well written post by some tanky about how a North Korean style dictatorship is superior to western democracy. Should you upvote it just because it’s well written, even if you think the idology is insane and dangerous?
The buttons control post visibility, so the question to ask is: do I want to boost this posts visibility? And then the crowd vote decides if the post is controversial which also boosts visibility.
This is the only real answer, regardless of how people actually use the buttons
I thought so too, but about a year ago or so this same question popped up, and some of the comments were really eye opening.
The essence of it was something like this: if you use the upvote/downvote buttons as agree/disagree, then you’re contributing to turning this platform into an echo chamber, which is the particular thing that makes social media such a shitty place.
You should use this feature on posts to indicate if it’s relevant to the community’s rules or not, meets the community’s guidelines or not, contains factual, useful information or not.
On comments, you should use it to indicate if it’s relevant to the topic or not, valid argument to what they’re replying to or not, regardless of your own opinion.
A great example someone commented was, when he explained they were browsing lemmy together with his girlfriend, they had a great laugh at a comment, and then he promptly downvoted it, to her surprise. And it’s because, even though the comment was fantastic, it was off topic, it wasn’t useful for the actual conversation.
Oh, and actually, there was a thing, even on Reddit - believe it or not - which acted as upvote/downvote guidelines, describing how you should use those buttons.
I’ll try to link the original post here if I find it.
Edit: Here’s the comment I was referring to on the original post: https://lemmy.world/comment/5219066
They are just buttons, and you have volition. If you use the down arrow as “agree” and up arrow as “I hate your family” it still works. The aggregate of community usage of buttons give them meaning.
There are many ways people use them.
The way I use them and I wish everyone did is:
Upvote = I agree with this, this is what I would have posted too if I had seen the comment earlier, this is extraordinarily funny or insightful and I want more people to see it
Downvote = I think this doesn’t meaningfully contribute to the discussion at all, it would have been better if it hadn’t been posted, others shouldn’t have to read it
The vast majority of things doesn’t fall into either of these categories, so I neither upvote nor downvote them; if I merely disagree with something, I write a counterargument but do not downvote.
I think there’s a shorter way to say this.
Upvote means promote. I think this should be seen.
Downvote means demote. I don’t think this should be seen.
Yes, but a lot of people “don’t think this should be seen” simply because they disagree with it, no matter how much of a good-faith on-topic post it is. That was a main point.
Which is what I’m kinda getting at. It’s always going to be up to the individual. Unfortunately there’s no way to force any kind of consensus.
It really depends on where you use them.
In some communities I’ll use upvotes as a way to track which posts I’ve seen.
In news communties I always downvote tabloid sources and clickbait headlines, regardless of content.
But when it comes to the comments, it’s mostly an agree/disagree button.
