I used to downvote fairly often on Reddit as a sign to disagree or to push down really disgusting bigoted comments. And to be honest, it became a habit to just downvote without replying. However, now that I’m on lemmy and not Reddit I’ve been actively trying to not instantly downvote things and instead move on or take the time to reply. Has anyone else been trying to do this?

  • empireOfLove@lemmy.one
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Why do you think I joined the instance I did?

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

  • keeslinp@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • TugOfWarCrimes@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      I agree about not using it just to disagree with an opinion, but I do think the ability to downvote is very important. It just needs to be clear that it’s supposed to be used to reduce the impact of stuff this is either harmful or just distracts from the conversation.

      If I’m in a thread talking about what the best flavor of milkshake is, I will absolutely upvote someone claiming that chocolate is the best even though they are “objectively” wrong. They are however engaging with the conversation. On the other hand, someone who comes in saying that they hate milkshakes and prefer lemonade, while they’re not exactly wrong in having that opinion, it would be worthy of a downvote because they’re in the wrong place for that comment.

      And then there’s the bots/people that if they lost the ability to ever talk again, the world would be a better place. Never feel sorry for downvoting them.

  • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.