I’m not convinced down votes do much. I know I don’t care a whole lot, personally. They feel like a somewhat toxic holdover from other platforms, a useless form of impersonal disapproval rather than genuine and productive discussion.
Sometimes, I genuinely produce an L take, in which case I’m more concerned about the replies pointing it out.
Sometimes it’s just bad phrasing or misunderstanding, where I also try to figure out what I did wrong by how people respond.
And sometimes I find that I kicked a nest of hornets whose opinions and down votes also mean nothing to me, providing validation at best.
I tend to engage way more than I should, telling myself that someone else might read it and take something away from the arguments being made, but just downvoting is probably even less productive. Hence, if you don’t wanna deal with their cuntery, blocking them is the most useful and healthy solution for your own sanity and enjoyment.
(I should also note that there are people I’ve gotten into arguments and disagreements with on here without blocking them. I don’t want an echo chamber, and if I silence all who disagree, that’s where I’ll end up. That’s tangential to the point, but my personal reason why I use blocking more sparingly.)
Like young people don’t realize that the infamous “this” comment is a relic from the days when the only way to agree/disagree was to put your name out there and reply.
If a forum has a few dozen regulars and a few hundred occasional users, you’ll see some names pop up frequently and build some impression of the user behind it. In my view, that’s a good spot between anonymity (I still don’t know the person behind the name, and I don’t need to) and accountability, because there’s a certain reputation attached to that name. If the name has meaning, standing for something with it does too.
With the internet growing in size, forums growing in population and social media… well, doing what it did, the volume of names exploded. Sockpuppets, alt accounts, bots, huge communities, higher turnover of users all make it harder to attach meaning to individual names. Some random name I don’t know, won’t remember and have no relation to replying “+” doesn’t mean much to me. It’s not much less anonymous than an upvote.
Lemmy is smaller. I have started picking up on names here and there, forming associations. I remember seeing yours before, for instance. Didn’t you also grow up in a charismatic cult?
As Lemmy grows, I imagine keeping track of all the frequent fliers outside smaller communities will get difficult too. Upvotes are just the convenient solution for the problem of a growing user base where using explicit replies to signal approval would lead to a lot of clutter. Easily accessible lists of votes might make that more transparent, but wouldn’t fix the impersonal nature of large platforms and the toxicity that encourages.
And there, ultimately, lies my point: If we’re equipped to handle communities of a few hundred people at most, how do we cope with an internet of millions?
I always have mixed feelings. Like, is it my duty towards a healthy forum to downvote this guy, and therefore I shouldn’t block him?
I don’t have the energy though. I usually end up blocking people like that.
I’m not convinced down votes do much. I know I don’t care a whole lot, personally. They feel like a somewhat toxic holdover from other platforms, a useless form of impersonal disapproval rather than genuine and productive discussion.
Sometimes, I genuinely produce an L take, in which case I’m more concerned about the replies pointing it out.
Sometimes it’s just bad phrasing or misunderstanding, where I also try to figure out what I did wrong by how people respond.
And sometimes I find that I kicked a nest of hornets whose opinions and down votes also mean nothing to me, providing validation at best.
I tend to engage way more than I should, telling myself that someone else might read it and take something away from the arguments being made, but just downvoting is probably even less productive. Hence, if you don’t wanna deal with their cuntery, blocking them is the most useful and healthy solution for your own sanity and enjoyment.
(I should also note that there are people I’ve gotten into arguments and disagreements with on here without blocking them. I don’t want an echo chamber, and if I silence all who disagree, that’s where I’ll end up. That’s tangential to the point, but my personal reason why I use blocking more sparingly.)
Vote scores made internet forums worse. I’ll die on that hill.
I’d upvote that, but it feels hypocritical ;-)
(Honestly though, I’ll stand with you.)
You replied so I think you’re clear.
Like young people don’t realize that the infamous “this” comment is a relic from the days when the only way to agree/disagree was to put your name out there and reply.
It’s also a size thing, I think.
If a forum has a few dozen regulars and a few hundred occasional users, you’ll see some names pop up frequently and build some impression of the user behind it. In my view, that’s a good spot between anonymity (I still don’t know the person behind the name, and I don’t need to) and accountability, because there’s a certain reputation attached to that name. If the name has meaning, standing for something with it does too.
With the internet growing in size, forums growing in population and social media… well, doing what it did, the volume of names exploded. Sockpuppets, alt accounts, bots, huge communities, higher turnover of users all make it harder to attach meaning to individual names. Some random name I don’t know, won’t remember and have no relation to replying “+” doesn’t mean much to me. It’s not much less anonymous than an upvote.
Lemmy is smaller. I have started picking up on names here and there, forming associations. I remember seeing yours before, for instance. Didn’t you also grow up in a charismatic cult?
As Lemmy grows, I imagine keeping track of all the frequent fliers outside smaller communities will get difficult too. Upvotes are just the convenient solution for the problem of a growing user base where using explicit replies to signal approval would lead to a lot of clutter. Easily accessible lists of votes might make that more transparent, but wouldn’t fix the impersonal nature of large platforms and the toxicity that encourages.
And there, ultimately, lies my point: If we’re equipped to handle communities of a few hundred people at most, how do we cope with an internet of millions?