Upvote = I laughed. That’s what I came for. To many occasions nowadays where a post’s main purpose is something other than making me laugh. Y’all need to entertain me better.
I’m pretty sure the intent when upvotes and downvotes were created was to use them in regards to relevance. Is the topic about ducks and someone is going off about jeeps? Downvote. Is the community about posting DIY peanut butter but someone keeps posting Skippy™? Downvote.
It shouldn’t have anything to do with agreeing, effort, or anything like that. Just a way to keep the topic/community on track.
Only if they are have no self esteem and need validation from strangers, upvotes are mostly fluff, downvotes when not abused are the better way of doing things
Someone says the earth is flat… downvote, someone says I wonder why they think like that let’s try and understand why they think like that doesn’t deserve a downvote, but with the current online echo chambers on both sides these are how downvotes are used
Nah, getting a dopamine hit is the standard human reaction to getting approval, and upvotes are basically distilled approval. You can pretend you are “tough” and don’t care about “validation from strangers” but normal people get a sense of satisfaction and a desire to repeat it when they post something online that is well received.
Hell, that emotional reaction is the entire motivating factor that keeps every social media site full of fresh content. People want to be liked.
Yeah you are right I’m not immune to our biological hardwiring it’s not a me being tough thing however, not everyone is equally affected by it.
I don’t have social media as I don’t see value in it, also if my comments get downvoted to shit or upvoted I don’t really care because these things aren’t real life to me
Even in real life if someone praises me for doing a good job it’s a nice thing to do for sure but I don’t actually care about getting praise especially from strangers, if it’s someone I know then sure
Sure, everyone is variable and your personal experience is valid. It isn’t very different from mine, tbh (also lemmy is social media so…)
I just took exception to the “(people are motivated by upvotes) …only if they have no self esteem and need validation from strangers” part. Many people are motivated by upvotes, but there isn’t anything necessarily wrong with that, and it certainly doesn’t mean they have low self esteem or anything. It just felt rude.
Put it like this, there’s a reason YouTube removed dislikes, because they need to keep seeing new channels. So even if the old popular channels die, they’ll have newer channels to replace them. That starts with making toxic disliking redundant. Don’t for a second think there’s no place for dislikes, but as a “I don’t like you” or “I disagree”, it’s counter productive.
Yes, some people do misuse down voting, but it’s absolutely worth it in my mind. It prevents bigotry from both being shown highly and also makes it clear that bigotry isn’t acceptable. How do you think someone feels when they see a bigoted comment and it’s in the positives. I’ll answer that question cause I’ve seen it all the time: it’s depressing as fuck. It still sucks to see bigoted comments at all, but at least when they’re downvoted to hell, it feels better. It feels nice to know that the bigotry isn’t accepted by others and that the bigot is in the minority.
Similar for general misinformation, scams, etc. It’d be nice if bad comments could just get removed before you see them, but that will never be perfect. Even well moderated communities still have delays before moderators see reports and most people won’t take the time to report either.
Yeah that constructiveness is purely subjective. Well it’s constructive based on my own personal point of view. And it might not align with other people.
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