They might also be meaningless internet points. Who knows.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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’ll sell you mine. Hell, I might even trade some points for a block of your finest cheese.
Haven’t been able to pay my bills with fake or real internet points yet. I can give you something equally worthless in return though. How about an AI drawing of a capybara?
Who will be the final boss in this battle?
I’m not following you. I see your previous comment was in a thread about video game bosses though?
It’s ok, it was a bad and unrelated joke.
I was just suggesting that the Lemmy system was better than the Reddit system, but that there might be a better system than this.
Lol that’s an interesting thought. I wonder what it would be like if instead of simply giving upvotes and downvotes, you could rate every comment/post on a scale of 1-10 or something. It probably wouldn’t work at all, but maybe there is some kind of system out there that would work better in the future.
You have a point.
