this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2024
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Fediverse memes

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[–] Luci@lemmy.ca 76 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Apparently it's the button you press to get banned from a community.

ASK ME HOW I KNOW

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 61 points 4 months ago (1 children)
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[–] Emperor@feddit.uk 58 points 4 months ago (2 children)

A lot of those are joke downvotes, well mine was.

[–] Nemo@slrpnk.net 91 points 4 months ago (3 children)

I downvote anyone complaining about downvote out of principle.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 months ago

I'll also down vote anyone using up votes as some kind of metric for their post/comment being inherently right/good

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 49 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Mine wasn't.

Communities trying to have alternate meanings for upvotes/downvotes must keep in mind that people scrolling posts across communities won't generally notice the community and if they do they won't read the rules and will vote however they want. Trying to force them to follow some silly community specific process is tilting at windmills and bitching about it is embarrassing.

[–] Walk_blesseD@lemmy.blahaj.zone 34 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Fr like if you don't like the way people are using the downvote feature why make a post whinging about it and not just make your account on an instance that has it disabled???

[–] donuts@lemmy.world 28 points 4 months ago (2 children)

aren't they the instance admin themselves?

[–] Kierunkowy74@piefed.social 11 points 4 months ago

Indeed, and this is a pinned post on Ye Power Trippin' Bastards. Posters ask if their bans were justified. Downvotes bury the post, preventing an audience from making their opinion about it.

[–] Walk_blesseD@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 4 months ago

Even funnier tbh

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Sadly one can't disable downvotes per community

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[–] DemBoSain@midwest.social 31 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Well, just add a 'disagree' button so there's no confusion.

[–] YeetPics@mander.xyz 6 points 4 months ago

That's just the Uber disagree button now.

[–] rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee 28 points 4 months ago (5 children)

I'll stop using the downvotes as a disagree button when everyone else stops using upvotes as an agree button.

[–] kattfisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I actually think up- and downvotes are inherently asymmetrical in this respect.

Upvoting things you agree with is fine and a main use of the function. Why then is downvoting things you disagree with wrong? Because the purpose of voting is visibility, you upvote things you want people to see, like arguments you agree with, and downvote those you don't think people should see.

Now if you believe in having an open discussion you don't want to suppress posts just because you disagree with them. Disagreeing is fine, so downvoting is reserved for posts that detract from the conversation.

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 4 months ago

you upvote a comment saying they love cats
you ignore a comment saying they don't like cats
you downvote a comment saying they hate cats because cats are evil
and you report a comment saying they eat cats

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[–] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 27 points 4 months ago

It's a bit of an unwinnable battle. People will always use it as disagree button

[–] Z_Poster365@hexbear.net 24 points 4 months ago (8 children)

Downvotes are definitely a disagree button and anyone denying it is just coping or lying about their own usage of it. Reddiquette was the worst thing that ever happened to internet culture

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[–] Cris_Color@lemmy.world 20 points 4 months ago (6 children)

Earnest question- what is it supposed to be used for? I don't downvote people very often, but I think I've only ever seen it used express approval or disapproval so that the score reflects community sentiment

How is it supposed to be used?

[–] HereIAm@lemmy.world 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)

In addition to what others said, in comments the down vote is meant to be used on comments that don't further discussion in good faith.

I used to subscribe to that idea, but I've since changed my mind. If the far majority use upvotes to mean agreement, then me upvoting a controversial, but well structured, opinion will likely be viewed as agreement as well.

It's a nice idea to think the voting system is meant to promote discussion, instead of homogenise opinions in a community.

[–] Cris_Color@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah, that's kind of the nature of communication I think, and ultimately votes are a form of communication :/

If people understand them to mean agreement or disagreement, that's the message they'll recieve regardless of whether it was the message that you were trying to send.

I guess if I wanna convey I appreciate someone's contribution even though I don't share their perspective I can always leave a comment; that seems like something I'd appreciate seeing in my inbox so maybe it's worthwhile for me to make that a habit

[–] HereIAm@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

Yeah that's something I do sometimes as well. I usually just don't vote on a comment as a third option for when I disagree with them, but don't want to punish having a different viewpoint ^^

[–] dch82@lemmy.zip 10 points 4 months ago (2 children)

when a post doesn't fit the community purpose or is generally inappropriate

[–] olsplasher@feddit.org 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Isn't that where you use the report functionality?

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[–] Ibaudia@lemmy.world 19 points 4 months ago
[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 16 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Yes they are. No matter the intent that is what they are.

[–] AFC1886VCC@reddthat.com 8 points 4 months ago

Spot on. Upvotes/downvotes are for voting on the quality of comment only in theory. In practice, they are agree/disagree buttons.

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[–] tejan@hubzilla.monster 15 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I always thought a downvote was just a silent "Booooooooooo!"

[–] zqps@sh.itjust.works 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

That's what it should be, a "booo!" for lazy and willfully ignorant comments.

In practice most people downvote any take they disagree with, no matter if it was expressed well, written respectfully, and contributes to the conversation.

[–] sik0fewl@lemmy.ca 11 points 4 months ago

As a rule of thumb I downvote any post that mentions being downvoted or complains about the reaction to a post or comment.

I will give this whole thread a pass, though 🙂

[–] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 10 points 4 months ago (10 children)

I couldn't even post an album there because the instance apparently sees external imgur albums as image spam or something stupid.

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[–] scott@authorship.studio 8 points 4 months ago

It would be interesting to see how people would behave if you had both a "Disagree" and a "Low Quality" button. Would it make any difference, or would people who dislike it also hit the low quality button out of spite?

[–] nucleative@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I think this kind of voting system intentionally places the content people want to see (i.e. agree with), at the top which increases active users.

But it doesn't stimulate healthy debate and definitely doesn't encourage going against the mainstream.

Slashdot had a more interesting system that let only a select number of people rank quality and set a post category (like funny, informative, etc).

[–] Evotech@lemmy.world 10 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I think it's a nice sentiment, but you can't change emergent behavior just by saying "this is wrong"

[–] Klear@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago

This is wrong.

[–] Nakoichi@hexbear.net 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

We disabled downvotes on hexbear and it honestly made for much healthier discussion

[–] RagingHungryPanda@lemm.ee 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)

That's actually surprising to me, because I'd think that down voting whack stuff would make things better overall. What was happening? It's not like people know who it was, or were down votes done out of spite?

I also couldn't help but notice some super conservative instances I've seen have down votes disabled.

[–] ClathrateG@hexbear.net 18 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

My perspective is that without them bad takes get called out, and if the poster is redeemable they can engage with constructive criticism and learn something from the replies

Rather than people downvoting and moving on which can lead to resentment on a posters behalf if they don't understand why a position of theirs may be getting downvoted

[–] anaesidemus@hexbear.net 16 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Downvotes were disabled because posts that touched on trans issues were routinely downvoted, often by the same users. Those users were purged and downvotes disabled to good effect.

Uninformed posters are given information if they are sincere.

Malicious posters get dunked on before getting banned.

It has worked very well in my opinion.

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[–] UlyssesT@hexbear.net 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Oh no, what would an online community look like without a downvote button?

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