Has anyone else been trying to break their reddit-era habit of downvoting?

For any weird, bigoted stuff, lots of downvotes and no replies is hopefully the message an OP needs to receive to get the hint that they should by plying their recruitment attempts elsewhere. Engaging them is probably the worst thing to do.

I've had to remember that there's automatic hiding though, and do that manually.

I usually downvote not because I disagree but because I think the comment is low effort or written in bad faith.

I've never changed my voting habits. I downvote trolls, hate, spam, and irrelevant content. I never downvote out of disagreement, nor do I use the upvote as an agreement button. I will upvote people I disagree with/am debating with if I believe they are promoting relevant discussion. That is how voting is intended to be used.

Why do you think I joined the instance I did?

Downvoting is useful for pushing irrelevant/spam comments down but it is definitely overused.

Permanently Deleted

up/down voting is simply a way to help comments you think are good, or agree with, become more/less dominant in the thread.

In some cases, comments are useful to explain why - but often that's just not the case.

If youre really into that, you should have signed up at Beehaw. They have downvotes disabled.

Personally, Imma keep doing it. Not because Im petty. But if I really disagree with something, I feel like it helps me avoid replying with something stupid or hurtful.

Nope. Downvotes are there to be used, so I use them.

I dislike using downvote as a disagree button. Makes me feel like I'm discouraging people from sharing an opinion that's different than mine. Even if they are wrong (in good faith) I think I'd rather they feel it is a safe place to be wrong and just own the mistake with an edit or a reply. I know it makes me feel bad (I know I should have thicker skin) when I'm downvoted for having an opinion so I don't want to make others feel that way.

That's a great step if it's something worth replying to. Not everything is.

HackerNews has an interesting approach: You can't downvote comments unless you reach a certain amount of "Karma", and you can't downvote posts at all, you can "flag" them, meaning you think they don't belong here. Flagging doesn't affect the vote count, but massive flagging does make the post appear lower in the feed, and alerts mods.

This, alongside the tight moderation and zero-tolerance towards flame wars in the comments makes HackerNews one of the best places on the internet imho.

Honestly, for a while on Reddit, downvote was the only action other than posting comments that I engaged with on Reddit, mostly because I never felt strongly enough to upvote or block or save. And then I went in and seriously prunes Subreddits and basically cut all the Subreddits that I would ever downvote in and the ones that were negativity based like all the Subreddits dedicated to showcasing trashy, racist or otherwise shitty people. Also, any subs generally based in being down on something, even if it was something that everyone should be down on. Also nixed subs like latestagecapitalism because while I broadly agreed with the sentiment, they very vitriolic about everything. Reddit really improved for me since then. Highly recommended, I then spent a lot more time upvoting and commenting. Obviously don't have that problem on Lemmy.

I don't think I have downvoted anyone in Lemmy yet.

But post and comment quality is much higher than Reddit.

if you don't have downvote, you don't have a tool to negatively select some content other than reporting. this way, if mods are overworked, which is always, you don't see difference between content that is irrelevant to most people and content that is actively harmful

Not really, I've only ever down voted something that I thought really needed to be down voted. There is a reason why the down vote buttons exist but they should really only be used when you have a good reason to use them.

It's funny though, because I have the exact opposite problem, as I up vote pretty much every post I see. While that is better, I understand that it's probably also bad in it's own way.

No, my up/down vote policy remains the same. I only downvote when I find the comment aggressive, rude or inappropriate. Occasionally I downvote something that is incorrect, but if the reason is that then I don't downvote to negative values. I don't think giving an incorrect answer deserves a negative ratio.

I've never much voted at all on Reddit, but here I upvote most things.

I personally found the 5th reply to the same comment thread a little repetitive. Unless there is anything more to add to the conversation a simple upvote/downvote on an already existing thread is probably enough. I don't think I ever downvoted a post though, just because I sorted by top/hot.

As time goes on I've been using the down vote more freely. Generally for anything I find low quality. I used to be more restrained with it but now I see it more as another tool that I have to shape the kind of content that gets promoted in the communities I interact with. It's the only option beyond withholding an upvote to keep low effort posts, trolling, and bigotry out of your communities other than reporting, which shouldn't do anything unless a post breaks the rules.

The habit I'm trying to break is writing out a response and then not posting it.

I intentionally joined an instance that doesn't allow it. I do it kind of compulsively on other sites but really don't feel good about it. Plus I always found it hurtful when people did it to me just because I didn't know something or had a polite disagreement. Downvoting reminds me of the 6 Million Merits episode of Black Mirror (if that's what it's called). Now when I try to downvote Lemmy says nope can't do that and I feel happy and relieved!

Downvotes are needed for some content but on the other hand they're public and can cause targeting

No downvotes. I use BAMO.

Block and move on.

I’m here for memes and boobs, ain’t nobody got time for dickheads.

I’m not much of a downvoter, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you downvoting a lot.

Downvotes are a key feature of this kind of thing, and lots of people have argued lack of a “I vote to suppress this content” feature in facebook is why it’s such a haven for conspiracy theories and crazy nonsense.

A good feedback and control system needs actuators in both directions. The downvote button is a valuable tool and I am totally happy to hear about you using it a lot.

If you don’t mind my asking, why are you trying to make this change? What do you think might be wrong with it, for you?

I’m definitely more open to interactions on here. The fediverse, and lemmy especially, feel more like a community and not just an endless sea content.

I don't understand this mentality to begin with? Downvoting without context is like cursing at a random person in public and then drive away.

I am trying, because I like the fresh new air of Lemmy and I want to bring more positivity in people everydays life, for a change.
I posted a neutral and genuine question a few days ago and got doomvoted hard, because it contained a buzzword.
Haters gonna be haters, but this thing hurts more that I'd like to admit it. There, I said it.

I barely voted at all on Reddit, trying to be more engaged here.

I think lemmy is too small at the moment to downvote in the same way people did on reddit. It's still growing and we need people to post content to build the site and everyone's engagement, downvotes for just disagreeing are going to discourage a whole new group of people who didn't post on reddit because of getting drowned out in the noise. Look in all the question posts about how people are enjoying lemmy and you'll see a bunch of them.

I've just been moving on and ignoring things I disagree with, no upvote is enough punishment in my eyes. Saying that I've been giving out upvotes to most things to encourage people to post and comment more. If something is clearly gross and offensive it'll get a downvote and possibly a report, but that's so rare in the communities I'm going to. If it's a really off topic comment or whatever then yes it's downvoted because it doesn't belong.

If there's something I really, really disagree with but don't want to get into a conversation about it I'll just block the user. That way I don't have to see or deal with their opinions I disagree with anymore and can just move on with my life.

I guess that's a really, really long winded way of agreeing with you lol. I've been a lot more liberal with the upvotes and have really changed my downvote behaviour too.

Honestly, I was never much into it. When I downloaded my (6 year old) Reddit account data, I had downvoted 9 things.

i don't downvote if i disagree but if someone is insulting or something else

I don’t really vote as a way to agree or disagree.

I only downvote if something is inappropriate, else I leave it be. And then I apply my own rule that is to upvote anything(!) that I comment on (yea this post too), no matter what I feel about it.

If something is worth spending time commenting on, it deserves an upvote.

i think ive only downvoted 1 offtopic lame comment so far, on lemmy

its not something i do often

in general the process of downvoting should be reserved to offtopic content, poor quality content etc

on reddit the "norm" was to downvote things you disagree with, which is dumb. then you end up with the echochamber problem and such. I once asked a critical question on /r/conservative and i got banned. Asking questions where the answer make them seem ... dumb, was apparently not acceptable. i got downvoted to hell, and eventually banned. for ONE comment :P

I think downvotes should be removed completely. They are useless, if a content is harmful or off topic you can just report it. With massive numbers of bots coming to Lemmy I think downvote brigades will be even more frequent. Why do we need to give a score to everything? Let's just enjoy good content and try to answer to bad one

You imply that this is systemic. Well its not. Let me help you move past this:

Strongly Agree: +1

Agree: 0

Neutral: 0

Disagree: 0

Strongly Disagree: -1

If you are having trouble with working through this, and you Strongly Strongly Strongly Disagree then there is a 6th option.

Strongly Strongly Strongly Disagree: +1 562-379-4995

I only downvoted some really racist comments on Reddit and the EA post as well.

My instance has downvoting disabled and honestly I'm glad it is. Downvoting never seemed to add anything to Reddit. If a comment isn't popular then people just won't upvote it

I joined Beehaw. We don't even have the option. The ethos is to at least attempt to give the OP the benefit of the doubt when we find problematic content (unless it's just blatantly trolling or in bad faith) and try to educate ignorance.

Otherwise, we just report and move on.

I don't think downvoting is a good thing. The argument is always "send a message to the user without engaging" but what you are doing is discouraging those users from posting and commenting at all.

I feel like upvoting content you agree with is a better method than downvoting content you don't agree with.

Been wondering if Lemmy should have some sort of variation on redditquette, particularly

Vote. If you think something contributes to conversation, upvote it. If you think it does not contribute to the subreddit it is posted in or is off-topic in a particular community, downvote it.

Which if you weren't aware was a non binding unofficial rule on reddit

I've often wondered what removing upvotes and only allowing downvotes on posts, not comments would do. The default behavior would be to not vote at all, but downvoting, especially for chronic reposts might actually be a nice thing. Plus no more karma farming.

For sure! I was doing it for people posting questions on technology and systems admin topics without doing any basic research. I realized that everybody learns things differently and not necessarily along a linear progression. In other words, I am gonna be a lot more patient and tolerant.

I've literally never upvoted/downvoted anything on Reddit or here, never understood the point of either. I read the thread & either engage or scroll on

...Downvote away 😀

Tech question: I just signed into beehaw with a third party app for the first time. Downvote button is there. I wonder if it works? Is the disabling on the UI layer in the browser (like some subreddits did) or is it deeper?

Gonna try downvoting my own comment here to find out.