They might also be meaningless internet points. Who knows.
I hope Lemmy’s internet points never become a thing people view as important. The way people act on Reddit to get a handful of up votes is embarrassing.
Is never counted as a total right? As long as it stays that way it shouldn’t.
Yeah it exists in the metadata, so certain front ends can display it and other platforms like Mbin and PieFed show it as a reputation score or something like that.
I think the way that Lemmy handles it is perfect, there’s no reason to display the cumulative score and it definitely acts as a barrier to free and open discussion because people start censoring themselves and judging other users by their profile rather than the things they actually say.
I don’t think it is in Tesseract or Alexandrite but I feel like I vaguely recall Jerboa, the mobile app, having it.
They’re really not meaningless though. For one thing, they allow moderators and admins to more easily detect trolls and bad faith actors. And on platforms or with add-ons that allow better tracking of vote history, it allows the user to more efficiently moderate their own experience, should they so choose.
Also, I think you’ve got to be kind of an asshole to not recognise that a little bit of validation from communities that you participate in is a nice thing to have and that downvotes can hurt to an extent, even if it’s not the same as getting physically slapped. And to be clear, I’m not pointing at you or anyone, I’m just riffing here. I haven’t even seen downvotes for a while now.
So yeah, I’d say they’re meaningless in a video game sense. You’re not going to win any prizes with them. But there’s a reason they exist, plus no one is immune to the effects of positive or negative reinforcement.
When I first got on Lemmy, there were a bunch of discussions about getting rid of downvotes, and I thought this was a bad idea. For the most part, they do a good job of allowing the communities to self-moderate. Sure there are trolls that downvote everything, and they can rot in Hell, but they’re a very small majority. Generally speaking, up/downvotes provide an easy way to sort the wheat from the chaff in both posts and comments.
remember the heated discussions about the “proper” use of downvotes?
iirc there was a bloc of users who were very adamant that downvotes only be used for indicating the comment in question failed to adhere to the 1964 Chicago Manual of Style regarding commas or something, but everybody else was using it to say “don’t like it” and they were super-cheesed.
Personally:
Upvote = I like it or it contributes well to discourse
Downvote = repeated trolling (first comment gets a pass, as do unpopular opinions, but doubling down on unambiguous and apolitical truths doesn’t), spam, scams, etc.
There are also trolls who constantly say controversial things. Looking at the downvote counter tells you something.
There are also people who… I don’t really know what’s going in the head of a person who intentionally insult everyone they come across. Did a nefarious little brother hijack that account or is that person really trying get some achievement about maxing out the downvote counter? Some people are a complete mystery. Either way, the downvote counter serves as a red flag.
Yeah, I don’t get it either. People who take joy in the anger of others are… a different breed.
https://kbin.earth/u/@gi1242@lemmy.world
Reputation points 7099
All depends on which app / UI you’re using I guess but it should look pretty much like Reddit almost everywhere. The only difference here is that there’s no grand total at the top of your profile like a high score. But when I was signed up on world, in the app I’m using you could see separate up and down vote counts for everything.
The first person to say the earth went around the sun got downvoted into oblivion… but they were still correct.
Upvotes and downvotes can be farmed by telling the various communities what they want to hear.
But, like you say, voting shows the level of interaction and traction your post gets - or doesn’t. I’m not sure there’s any other option at the moment.
I agree. At the very least they say “this many people liked what you said or posted enough to click this button”, and that is far from meaningless.
Banned, despite plenty of upvotes.
https://old.lemmy.world/comment/14632786
Happens all the time. Anything to say @ReadyUser31@lemme.world or @aeronmelon@lemme.world? How powerful do you feel when all anyone has to do to reveal you’re “deleted” post is to click “source”?
I just disable “show votes” in settings and that’s it.
Wait wait, global karma is a thing now…? If so: not a good change. I thought it was a great idea to omit that, tbh.
I’ve been thinking recently that Lemmy would simply be better off without any comment votes. I’ve heard some instances disable them, but it still seems to be the norm. Group think already has enough pull given human nature. It doesn’t need a boost.
What if we could trade in our Internet points for some sick cosmetics 🤣
You have a point.
