Because to me, they seem like de facto "Agree and “Disagree” buttons, whether or not it was the intent.
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 (approval, agreement, joy, etc.) and downvotes always relating negative emotion (disagreement, disapproval, anger, etc.)?
That is, are upvotes “yays” and downvotes “boos”?
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
hm, I do think what I meant by “yay” is some kind of supportive or positive emotional response, which is still happening when you are upvoting terrible news for being informative, i.e. what you are responding to with “yay” is being informed and wishing others to be informed, not the content of the news itself.
(For context I’m drawing on the metaethical theory of emotivism here as a framework.)
I wouldn’t “agree” with a joke
Upvote: I agree at least for the most part.
Downvote: I have problems with the general content, or the source of the content.
No vote: I’m not going to downvote you, but I don’t have to upvote you either.
No vote is the best way to let something just die out. Any sort of engagement would make it higher in the popular “hot” category so no action is the best for “this is shit and no one should see it”.
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.
This is a question of prescriptivism vs. descriptivism. People might say they shouldn’t be used as such, but I’ll bet a lot of people who say that are guilty of doing it anyway.
They shouldn’t be used as such, but frequently are. It is even more difficult to distinguish between disagreement and insufficient argumentation.
Shouldn’t be but they tend to be.
Sometimes people just straight up use them as agree/disagree buta lot of folks struggle to admit that an argument in favour of something with which they disagree can still be a worthwhile argument.
If a story about someone getting hurt because X is posted, you don’t downvote it because you dislike what happened, you upvote it because it’s important information that should be shared.
If someone makes a civilized and measured argument that you don’t agree with, you don’t downvote it because you disagree with their stance, you upvote it because it’s worthwhile discussion and all viewpoints deserve to be heard.
If you’re unsure how to feel about something, you can just not vote on it and scroll on. Unfortunately, there are apps that hide things when you vote. Some people are trained to always vote as a way of clearing their feed.
And other social media has spent decades training people that up means like and down means dislike. So the distinction that places like Lemmy or Reddit have from places like YouTube or Facebook is always going to be hard to convey to the many, many people who have been taught to think otherwise.
this fairly informative response has downvotes, ironically.
downvoting something only because you disagree with its contents is a sign of immaturity. it screams, “i personally don’t like this viewpoint so i’ll do everything in my power to suppress it from everyone else.”.
the mature response would be to leave the voting buttons alone and provide instead a measured response of the reasons for your disagreement.
It’s supposed to be about relevance and moderation of abusive content, not agreement, but that’s not usually the case.
Not quite. Upvote means “I agree I like butt licking” and downvote means “I agree I like butt sex.” Easy to confuse the two.
Now, just to be clear, does this apply to both the upvoter/downvoter and the comment being left or just the upvoter/downvoter alone?
Just upvote and downvote. The comment is more like what style of licking and butt sex. To add context.
I down- and upvoted this comment.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
They’re “I want to see more like this” and “I want to see less like this” buttons.
Nobody’s going to upvote shit takes, obviously.
If someone’s being an asshole or an idiot, I’m going to downvote them.
If someone says something that needs saying, or that’s interesting or funny, I’m going to upvote it.
They are “hell yeah” and “fuck no” buttons.
