Has anyone else been trying to break their reddit-era habit of downvoting?

For any weird, bigoted stuff, lots of downvotes and no replies is hopefully the message an OP needs to receive to get the hint that they should by plying their recruitment attempts elsewhere. Engaging them is probably the worst thing to do.
I've had to remember that there's automatic hiding though, and do that manually.
- Definitely agree with that, I very much so still downvote bigoted comments and posts though I think I’ve only encountered two comments like that so far. Lemmy mods and admins are doing a great job.
  
  I switched instances just so I could be on one that had downvotes because I passionately believe downvotes give immediate power to of self moderation to the users. However, I'm very light on downvoting. I only downvotevote stuff like the OP was talking about or if something is technically incorrect and damaging to a thread. But again I'm very light on downvoting, as I was on Reddit before. I usually ignore something that I simply don't agree with or think is too silly, etc.
- I was Reading a post earlier tonight where someone shared an anti Covid view point and dropped the whole big Pharma/government groupthink garbage.
  Every comment was telling them they would not be accepted here with those views.
  I checked a few hours later and the conspiracists comment was gone, but it did have the largest number of downvotes I’ve come across yet at 150ish.
  An echo chamber we need not be, but conspiracy garbage we need not at all.
  I just miss when conspiracies were fun and not essentially a threat to one’s livelihood.
  
  From everything I've seen, conspiracy theories were rarely harmless. They almost always were rooted in antisemitism.

I usually downvote not because I disagree but because I think the comment is low effort or written in bad faith.

I've never changed my voting habits. I downvote trolls, hate, spam, and irrelevant content. I never downvote out of disagreement, nor do I use the upvote as an agreement button. I will upvote people I disagree with/am debating with if I believe they are promoting relevant discussion. That is how voting is intended to be used.
- I don't downvote if I disagree but I can't help but upvotes in agreement. Positive reinforcement is my thing.
- Same for me, my only difficulty is discerning whether the commenter is promoting relevant discussion or doing some variant of gishgallop or sealioning.
  
  Some variant of what's it?
- Same. For me, upvote = adding something to the conversation. That's why I upvote most comments I come across, and rarely downvote people.
- They should make it so that replying to a comment automatically disables your ability to downvote it.
  Would simultaneously prevent people trading downvotes while they argue back and forth, and encourage people to simply ignore trolls and move on without replying.
  
  If a post contains incorrect information that could be dangerous, you should be able to reply to it and also downvote it so that the incorrect information becomes less visible. For example, if someone said you should pinch your nose and lean your head back when you get a nosebleed. You should be able to correct them and still downvote to make the incorrect information less visible.
  
  I like this idea. Make the karma irrelevant so we don't get those awful bots or the tit-for-tat arguments

Why do you think I joined the instance I did?
Downvoting is useful for pushing irrelevant/spam comments down but it is definitely overused.
- Yup, I saw vote manipulation way too much on Reddit. 3-5 down votes on a dissenting opinion right after it's posted usually tanks even the most well reasoned comment. Accounts like Unidan fly under the radar for so long.
- It's not used for pushing irrelevant or spammy content. It's used to show you don't agree and push that content away from sight. At least be honest about that if you support using downvotes.
  People act like they are making the thread better in some way by cleaning trash. But that's not what happens. You are just making sure opinions you don't agree with are at the bottom of the thread. Nothing noble about that. Feels good, sure.
  
  You're phrasing it in a way that is actively harmful. It's like you're trying to make downvotes worse than they are.
  They're absolutely useful, but not for just opinions you don't like.
  
  At least be honest about that if you support using downvotes.
  lemmy.one has downvotes disabled.

- Yeah it wasn't made for disagreement, it was meant for a crowd control form of moderation. That's why they had the karma index and allow for subreddits to impose karma restrictions. (I guess there could be an argument about it being a form of social credit system if it were, which let's be honest it became that anyway, whether or not it was intended to be that way from the beginning)
- "Discussions became binary". And yet you subscribe to the binary of "hateful vs. non-hateful opinion" as if it's clearly identifiable.

up/down voting is simply a way to help comments you think are good, or agree with, become more/less dominant in the thread.
In some cases, comments are useful to explain why - but often that's just not the case.

If youre really into that, you should have signed up at Beehaw. They have downvotes disabled.
Personally, Imma keep doing it. Not because Im petty. But if I really disagree with something, I feel like it helps me avoid replying with something stupid or hurtful.
- Downvotes really shouldn’t be for comments or submissions that you disagree with, but for anything that does not add to the conversation. Reddit started off with this guideline too, but at some point votes turned into agree/disagree.
  
  People always said the same thing on Reddit too, but there’s a lot of stuff that “adds to a conversation” that needs to be downvoted. Just because something “adds to a conversation” doesn’t mean that the people shouldn’t express that it’s an awful comment or viewpoint by downvoting.
  For instance, on a history article about Nazis someone could say “well some were bad, but not all were. Plus the good they did around the world was actually a lot better than people give them credit for like introducing a universal basic income or providing their citizens with jobs and healthcare for all.”
  Like… it’s a viewpoint… but by not downvoting that viewpoint you’re basically allowing someone to say Nazis aren’t bad. Which to me is why the downvote button is there in the first place. Good, well thought out comments that add to a conversation should be upvoted, but awful comments should be downvoted too. People just need to be more well intentioned about when they’re downvoting a viewpoint they disagree with.
- I actually did lol, that was supposed to be my main but since they defederated from lemmy.world I’ve been using this account more. I may switch back once they refederate but for now this is my main.
  
  Yeah such dumb move on their part.

Nope. Downvotes are there to be used, so I use them.

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.
- 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.
- You have a point. I did find myself downvoting much of what I disagreed with on Reddit. I wouldn't mind seeing everyone break that habit here. Maybe that should be stickied in some official welcome to Lemmy etiquette post.

That's a great step if it's something worth replying to. Not everything is.

HackerNews has an interesting approach: You can't downvote comments unless you reach a certain amount of "Karma", and you can't downvote posts at all, you can "flag" them, meaning you think they don't belong here. Flagging doesn't affect the vote count, but massive flagging does make the post appear lower in the feed, and alerts mods.
This, alongside the tight moderation and zero-tolerance towards flame wars in the comments makes HackerNews one of the best places on the internet imho.
- Completely agree on all points.
  An additional one I’d argue is a huge part of HN’s success is their employment of a full-time moderator, dang, who does a great job.

Honestly, for a while on Reddit, downvote was the only action other than posting comments that I engaged with on Reddit, mostly because I never felt strongly enough to upvote or block or save. And then I went in and seriously prunes Subreddits and basically cut all the Subreddits that I would ever downvote in and the ones that were negativity based like all the Subreddits dedicated to showcasing trashy, racist or otherwise shitty people. Also, any subs generally based in being down on something, even if it was something that everyone should be down on. Also nixed subs like latestagecapitalism because while I broadly agreed with the sentiment, they very vitriolic about everything. Reddit really improved for me since then. Highly recommended, I then spent a lot more time upvoting and commenting. Obviously don't have that problem on Lemmy.
- Obviously don’t have that problem on Lemmy.
  yet

if you don't have downvote, you don't have a tool to negatively select some content other than reporting. this way, if mods are overworked, which is always, you don't see difference between content that is irrelevant to most people and content that is actively harmful
- 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
  
  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

Not really, I've only ever down voted something that I thought really needed to be down voted. There is a reason why the down vote buttons exist but they should really only be used when you have a good reason to use them.
It's funny though, because I have the exact opposite problem, as I up vote pretty much every post I see. While that is better, I understand that it's probably also bad in it's own way.
- I think it wouldn't hurt to upvote more than what you normally do on Reddit while you're on Lemmy. The community here is smaller and it'll benefit a lot of more people interacted with the site by upvoting.
  
  I don’t know if absolute numbers would really help. Like it doesn’t bother me that I haven’t seen any lemmy posts with 35k score yet.
  Just so long as there’s some variation in scores that we can use for sorting content, it works.

I don't think I have downvoted anyone in Lemmy yet.
But post and comment quality is much higher than Reddit.
- I downvoted that post that was an advertisement for crypto

No, my up/down vote policy remains the same. I only downvote when I find the comment aggressive, rude or inappropriate. Occasionally I downvote something that is incorrect, but if the reason is that then I don't downvote to negative values. I don't think giving an incorrect answer deserves a negative ratio.

As time goes on I've been using the down vote more freely. Generally for anything I find low quality. I used to be more restrained with it but now I see it more as another tool that I have to shape the kind of content that gets promoted in the communities I interact with. It's the only option beyond withholding an upvote to keep low effort posts, trolling, and bigotry out of your communities other than reporting, which shouldn't do anything unless a post breaks the rules.

I personally found the 5th reply to the same comment thread a little repetitive. Unless there is anything more to add to the conversation a simple upvote/downvote on an already existing thread is probably enough. I don't think I ever downvoted a post though, just because I sorted by top/hot.

I've never much voted at all on Reddit, but here I upvote most things.

No downvotes. I use BAMO.
Block and move on.
I’m here for memes and boobs, ain’t nobody got time for dickheads.
- Well said!

I intentionally joined an instance that doesn't allow it. I do it kind of compulsively on other sites but really don't feel good about it. Plus I always found it hurtful when people did it to me just because I didn't know something or had a polite disagreement. Downvoting reminds me of the 6 Million Merits episode of Black Mirror (if that's what it's called). Now when I try to downvote Lemmy says nope can't do that and I feel happy and relieved!

Downvotes are needed for some content but on the other hand they're public and can cause targeting

The habit I'm trying to break is writing out a response and then not posting it.

I don't understand this mentality to begin with? Downvoting without context is like cursing at a random person in public and then drive away.
- That’s not really a great comparison. Downvoting is a way to say you disagree with someone without getting into an argument. And if I think of my personal experience, most of the posts/comments I would downvote on Reddit are about things that there is no point getting into an argument about.
  
  Downvoting is a way to say you disagree with someone without getting into an argument.
  Is that what it’s supposed to mean though? I understood it to mean that the comment either didn’t contribute to the discussion or it was actually detrimental to it.
  I regularly used to upvote people that I replied to even if disagreed with them.
  Obviously, if they’re being dicks then that’s a downvote.
  
  Votes being public has made it possible to learn a bit about how people interact with posts. I’ve always used the downvote sparingly and I think that is how most people operate, downvoting only what doesn’t contribute to discussion and upvoting what I agree with. But it seems a minority downvote very frequently. There are some accounts that downvote the vast majority of posts in certain communities. Sometimes these accounts have zero posts and comments. Which is pretty odd - disagreeing with so much while never sharing your opinion.
  
  I think it's a great comparison. You can punish someone without providing a reason, and so the poster just thinks other people are arseholes. You did it just because you can. You might think there's no point arguing back, but the person who wrote the comment obviously thought it was a good point.
- Sadly
- It’s not a really a mentality per se, it’s just a lot less mental effort to downvote and move on. Especially when you consider all the downvote bots and the fact that downvotes were not public. Downvoting in general was really devalued and people used it to just remove content from their face as opposed to engaging with it. Lemmy feels different in that regard.

I’m not much of a downvoter, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you downvoting a lot.
Downvotes are a key feature of this kind of thing, and lots of people have argued lack of a “I vote to suppress this content” feature in facebook is why it’s such a haven for conspiracy theories and crazy nonsense.
A good feedback and control system needs actuators in both directions. The downvote button is a valuable tool and I am totally happy to hear about you using it a lot.
If you don’t mind my asking, why are you trying to make this change? What do you think might be wrong with it, for you?

I’m definitely more open to interactions on here. The fediverse, and lemmy especially, feel more like a community and not just an endless sea content.
- Yeah I’ve started getting into a couple reddit style arguments here and feeling that feeling again just makes me say “nah” and be a little nicer to keep it from going that way, or just bail if it seems unavoidable.
  It’s so refreshing to have respectful conversations here.
  
  Yeah everyone I’ve seen here seems so nice compared to reddit.

I am trying, because I like the fresh new air of Lemmy and I want to bring more positivity in people everydays life, for a change.
I posted a neutral and genuine question a few days ago and got doomvoted hard, because it contained a buzzword.
Haters gonna be haters, but this thing hurts more that I'd like to admit it. There, I said it.

I barely voted at all on Reddit, trying to be more engaged here.

i don't downvote if i disagree but if someone is insulting or something else

i think ive only downvoted 1 offtopic lame comment so far, on lemmy
its not something i do often
in general the process of downvoting should be reserved to offtopic content, poor quality content etc
on reddit the "norm" was to downvote things you disagree with, which is dumb. then you end up with the echochamber problem and such. I once asked a critical question on /r/conservative and i got banned. Asking questions where the answer make them seem ... dumb, was apparently not acceptable. i got downvoted to hell, and eventually banned. for ONE comment :P
- I don't think downvotes, as they are now, are for any particular purpose other than showing the poster you don't like the post. What I mean to say is that limiting downvotes for off topic stuff isn't enforceable and poor quality content is pretty subjective. Not sure if you are aware of the bean posts recently, but I didn't like them and would consider them poor quality memes. Almost everyone else loved them though, which is totally fine, but I still downvoted those.
  Anyone armed with critical thinking skills will eventually reason themselves out of echo chambers, just like your story proves! Although I feel like the ban was more due to the admins of the sub than the downvotes. There are communities where downvoted content isn't removed if it doesn't break any rules, those are the ones people should look for.

I think lemmy is too small at the moment to downvote in the same way people did on reddit. It's still growing and we need people to post content to build the site and everyone's engagement, downvotes for just disagreeing are going to discourage a whole new group of people who didn't post on reddit because of getting drowned out in the noise. Look in all the question posts about how people are enjoying lemmy and you'll see a bunch of them.
I've just been moving on and ignoring things I disagree with, no upvote is enough punishment in my eyes. Saying that I've been giving out upvotes to most things to encourage people to post and comment more. If something is clearly gross and offensive it'll get a downvote and possibly a report, but that's so rare in the communities I'm going to. If it's a really off topic comment or whatever then yes it's downvoted because it doesn't belong.
If there's something I really, really disagree with but don't want to get into a conversation about it I'll just block the user. That way I don't have to see or deal with their opinions I disagree with anymore and can just move on with my life.
I guess that's a really, really long winded way of agreeing with you lol. I've been a lot more liberal with the upvotes and have really changed my downvote behaviour too.
- This is not a really good reply to to your nuanced comment lol, but I love your pfp 🥰
  
  Ha ha! Thank you very much for noticing!

Honestly, I was never much into it. When I downloaded my (6 year old) Reddit account data, I had downvoted 9 things.

I don’t really vote as a way to agree or disagree.
I only downvote if something is inappropriate, else I leave it be. And then I apply my own rule that is to upvote anything(!) that I comment on (yea this post too), no matter what I feel about it.
If something is worth spending time commenting on, it deserves an upvote.

I only downvoted some really racist comments on Reddit and the EA post as well.

You imply that this is systemic. Well its not. Let me help you move past this:
Strongly Agree: +1
Agree: 0
Neutral: 0
Disagree: 0
Strongly Disagree: -1
If you are having trouble with working through this, and you Strongly Strongly Strongly Disagree then there is a 6th option.
Strongly Strongly Strongly Disagree: +1 562-379-4995
- What? I’m already doing this now. I just used to do Slightly Disagree: -1. I’m not really having trouble doing it, I was just noting my own desire to change my habits.

I think downvotes should be removed completely. They are useless, if a content is harmful or off topic you can just report it. With massive numbers of bots coming to Lemmy I think downvote brigades will be even more frequent. Why do we need to give a score to everything? Let's just enjoy good content and try to answer to bad one
- Come to beehaw, we don't have downvotes.
- Completely agree. Always thought voting was stupid in general.
  
  Well, I already am! Ahaha

Been wondering if Lemmy should have some sort of variation on redditquette, particularly
Vote. If you think something contributes to conversation, upvote it. If you think it does not contribute to the subreddit it is posted in or is off-topic in a particular community, downvote it.
Which if you weren't aware was a non binding unofficial rule on reddit

I joined Beehaw. We don't even have the option. The ethos is to at least attempt to give the OP the benefit of the doubt when we find problematic content (unless it's just blatantly trolling or in bad faith) and try to educate ignorance.
Otherwise, we just report and move on.
- It will be interesting to see how the existence or lack of a downvote option affects communities over time. There's some interesting arguments to be made both for and against. And now we actually have a way to easily test and compare between comparable communities on different instances.

My instance has downvoting disabled and honestly I'm glad it is. Downvoting never seemed to add anything to Reddit. If a comment isn't popular then people just won't upvote it
- I disagree, the lack of downvotes on other platforms makes it hard to see if an opinion isn't popular or simply didn't get many views. Yes downvoting was absued to just disagree with an opinion but it also served in separating malicious and harmful content from the good comments in cases where moderation would be excessive (for example: arguing the earth is flat. Nobody should be banned for saying that but people should still be able to tell that nobody thinks that).
  While commenting can serve to do that job as well it does so worse imo. You likely don't comment on everything you would upvote either and it's the same thing really.
  
  Exactly, and I think that there's even more downsides as well to strictly comment level disagreement. There's never any point engaging with bigoted posts. Replies just draw more attention and make you more angry. Better to just downvote, report, and move on without spending too much emotional energy trying to bicker and squabble for a while thread.
  There's just an emotional inequity when it comes to a debate between, for example, a transphobe and a trans person. A transphobe likely knows everything they say can be bullshit - they don't have to stick to reason. The whole point is just a rhetorical exercise where the cruelty and sadism is the point.
  The trans person tho has to stick to researching the dsm v or guidances from credible medical institutions and respond with effort posts and Yada Yada. Everyone's eyes glaze over and the end result is the trans person is exhausted and feels worse about their life.
  Downvote and move on is just a means of reduction of digital self harm. I find it bad to not have it for cases like that, especially on communities where mods aren't as caring about bigotry. To leave it unchallenged just shows that some people agree with it, and shows nothing to effect of how many people find it repulsive.
- Hard disagree. Down votes shouldn't be disabled, and I'm disappointed that Beehaw has chosen to do this.
  What about comments that give dangerous advice to an unknowing audience?
  That's one good reason for down votes. People may upvote it not knowing any better, and when someone comes along to correct them, the damage is done. Other knowledgeable people can't downvote it to make sure that dangerous advice gets pushed to the bottom, they just have to hope those that upvoted come back, see the rest of the discussion, and remove their upvote.
  
  No, you should reply and explain why the advice is dangerous. A comment might be downvoted for all sorts of reasons and so it doesn't send a clear message. Downvoting is like grounding your kids just because you are angry, without explaining what they did wrong. They will just conclude you are an arsehole that will punish them whenever you fancy. Which is exactly my opinion of redditors and why I stopped posting there.
- That assumes there aren't any popular opinions that you don't agree with in the slightest.
- Totally agree with this. I never downvote anything because it's stupid in my opinion. It just sends a message that certain opinions are not welcome. I don't want to only talk to people I agree with.
- That's a great point, and I wouldn't mind if all instances used that policy.

I don't think downvoting is a good thing. The argument is always "send a message to the user without engaging" but what you are doing is discouraging those users from posting and commenting at all.
I feel like upvoting content you agree with is a better method than downvoting content you don't agree with.

For sure! I was doing it for people posting questions on technology and systems admin topics without doing any basic research. I realized that everybody learns things differently and not necessarily along a linear progression. In other words, I am gonna be a lot more patient and tolerant.

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.

I've literally never upvoted/downvoted anything on Reddit or here, never understood the point of either. I read the thread & either engage or scroll on
...Downvote away 😀

Tech question: I just signed into beehaw with a third party app for the first time. Downvote button is there. I wonder if it works? Is the disabling on the UI layer in the browser (like some subreddits did) or is it deeper?
Gonna try downvoting my own comment here to find out.
- Got a toast saying "downvotes disabled "