this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2024
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This is true across the web. Not only do some people not read through it all and not understand the nuance even if they did read all of it, they also tend to play follow the leader and downvote when others already have instead of taking a minute or two out of their day and deciding for themselves.
I really wish we could get away from the up/down votes. Despite knowing better and honestly not giving a flying fuck, I find myself obsessed with it at times and it's not healthy. As much as I dislike the emoticons that have taken over, I'd almost prefer that. Use hearts or smiley faces or something and show the actual ratio of up/down, ie 5 hearts and 5 frowny face or whatever.
I'll take imperfect up/down vote usage that helps filter out the worst takes the majority of the time over letting horrible people appear to be on the same level as a reasonable take.
In general I try to go back on downvoted posts to see if I was unclear to improve it for next time. But I am guilty of relying on prior voters knowing about context and end up using group concensus to vote posts up or down when they are a bit unclear on intent, so can't really blame others that donthe same.
I try and not assume the worst in people, but over time it is getting really hard not to knowing how common it is for malicious actors to use subtle hints to sway opinion.
My issue with the downvotes is that it is regularly brigaded even if it's not an organized effort. Legit contributions get shouted down to being hidden while other non helpful or downright dangerous info is kept above it. On reddit with the smaller subs it doesn't matter especially when it's a post because it's still going to show in the sub. And while lemmy/fediverse is still small and growing, this will most definitely push plenty of people (likely me included) to not be as active because the majority of people don't seem to be capable of having a real conversation and instead just downvote and move on.
The one thing lemmy and the fediverse has going for it is not having karma attached to your account so you don't have people looking for upvotes for legitimacy and you don't have downvote troll farmers who see how far negative they can get.
I could also see keeping the up/down and total so long as it's hidden (but accessible to those that want to see it). I'd also be okay if downvoting enough of a specific accounts comments or posts automatically hid it from you (without blocking them completely).
And to make my point even clearer. Multiple someones have been going through my comment history and downvoting everything they can. The only ones they haven't are probably the ones that the post was deleted so while I can see my comment, I can't see any responses or the ones I responded to. And lemmy doesn't do that random bullshit that reddit does so I know they are real.
And even more on the nose here. I'm sure this addendum will sound like I am crying to a few or more of the drive by downvoters here and will bring in an onslaught of downvotes because as you already brought up, way too many people don't take the time to think about what they are reading and just react silently or by responding as if they are a 3rd grader bullying a toddler on the playground, likely because no one loves them enough (because they are hell to be around).
I'll get ahead of it. Bring on the downvotes mfers.
What a giant load of conspiracy nonsense