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?
I bet that 99% of comments that are downvoted are not breaking any rules at all, and a mod would do nothing.
I don’t know why people keep thinking downvoting is helping the mods… It really isn’t about anything other than pushing down opinions you don’t agree with. That’s how downvoting is used, upvoting is the opposite of that.
consider the following: technical question gets posted. you get two answers, one wrong but posted quickly, and another correct and more elaborate, but posted much later. the first one will get more upvotes just because it appears first, and the other gets less attention as a result. one way you can counteract this is by introducing downvotes, it’s not perfect solution, but it kinda works
Yep also a valid usecase. I agree it’s useful for technical discussions but at the same time, it’s harmful for opinion based discussions.
Which is why you shouldn’t downvote everything you disagree with. That’s not what it’s for, and we should actively discourage people from using it incorrectly. As Sisyphean of a task as that is, it still matters.
You cannot change how people use them, no matter how much you want them to use it correctly.
this works better in specialized, technical spaces with little place for opinion (i’m talking about places like r/chemistry where i contributed previously). you can spot very quickly who’s wrong by downvotes
Yeah I guess it makes sense when it’s not about opinions.
i’m guessing that this property has made reddit a good place for technical discussion in the first place