Okay, say there’s a post that says something bad… what do I (or you) do? Do you upvote it because it’s like “thank you for pointing this out”, or does your upvote mean you support whatever the post says (which is kinda the opposite)?
This is super important and not sure how many people know what they’re doing lmao
Edit: Okay. It has been decided. We need more buttons than just Up/Down 🥲
Okay. It has been decided. We need more buttons than just Up/Down 🥲
I see voting as decentralized moderation, not as an expression of agreement or like or something.
Upvote means “I want people to see this” and downvote means “I don’t want people to see this.”
That’s the ideal.
But I think most people conflate those with agree and disagree.That’s still consistent, normal people don’t want posts they disagree with to be seen by other people. Only debate perverts would upvote something they disagree with, because they want people to see “good discussion” or whatever.
EDIT To clarify, as a proud debate pervert I tend to upvote people I’m arguing with just so our argument gets more visibility.
Upvotes and Downotes mean whatever you want them to mean.
You are supposed to upvote things that:
- you like
- belong in the community it’s posted in
- upvoting favors it for the algorithm, ranking it higher and making it stay longer. If you want others to see the stuff, you upvote.
With comments, you are supposed to upvote things that contribute to the discussion, even if you disagree with it, but in practice people often just upvote what they like and agree with and downvote what they don’t agree with and there is pretty much nothing anyone can do to change that. So do what you think is right.
As usual they are the like and dislike buttons. People will cope but when you ask them to explain how they use them they’ll say “I use the upvote button for (thing that they like) and the downvote button for (thing that I dislike)”
I’d like to say I upvote anything that I think is a positive addition to the community it’s posted in, regardless of whether I agree with it substantively or not. But honestly, it’s all just vibes.
Downvotes aren’t a thing on my instance and I like it that way.
For me:
Agree = Up vote
Agree, but your comment was cringe = No vote
Agree, but you presented it in an ultra-cringy way that actually weakens the point = Down vote
Disagree = No vote
Disagree, but very good and valid point = Up vote
Disagree, and also cringe = Down vote
I think of votes as adding or decreasing visibility. Which is a little different than “I like this.” An upvote means you think other people should see a post/comment.
So unsavory but important things still deserve an upvote imo. That doesn’t mean you like the thing being discussed.
