I came from Reddit where they definitely did matter. They don’t seem to hold any real weight here. Is this true for some or all instances? If they don’t matter, what are they for?
I’m disappointed by the lack of Whose Line Is It Anyway references in this thread :(
“everything’s made up and the points don’t matter”
Yes they are used to sort comments and that’s great. You also know if you’re getting into a circlejerk or a controversial discussion.
What? It mattered in Reddit? Are you sure its that same Reddit?
I treat them differently than on Reddit. I upvote content that I want other people to see.
Bc there are different ways to sort your feed, I want to highlight content that adds value to whoever else’s might log on later, even when I might not like it (news for example).
On Reddit, upvotes/Karma were indicative of your value as a poster to that community. They are more like Facebook likes/dislikes for algorithm purposes.
On Lemmy, I see that as the value of the post itself.
I get 3x more downvotes compared to upvotes for speaking truthfully and I am just doing fine
Not sure if I should up or down vote this to make a point /j
You should downvote
Of course not.
They fill the role nonverbal cues do in real life. Whenever I go back to old-style forums I miss them, because everyone ends up arguing with a few trolls/nuts that would look like they’re being taken seriously otherwise.
I think how you see it is that on reddit, some communities require karma (points) and/or age to interact with the community. On both sites, it’s self-governing, like how most bots and trolls get downvoted to hell, and whether you should interact or take them seriously, stuff like that. I can’t say anything much about lemmy, since I’m also new to it, but it’s a way of self-governing… the algorithms also use votes to sort what gets shown at the top and bottom of a page and anywhere in between.
I’m currently on lemmy.ml and I’m relatively new, so remember other instances may be different, and take what I say with a grain of salt, because I’m new.
Have a great day and be kind! :D
Not sure what you mean when you say Reddit votes matter in some way that they don’t on Lemmy.
On Reddit, the algorithm that determines which posts appear on the main page is heavily influenced by the number of up/down votes for the post and its comments.
Ah, and that isn’t the case on Lemmy I suppose?
Give me your internet points!!!
They matter in the original intention of votes: visibility.
Votes get used to sort content.
disclaimer; i’m on an instance that doesn’t have downvotes. even if i wasn’t, though, the only time i ever really downvoted was for obvious troll content (and even then i really only did that to help the mods while i reported it).
i use upvotes mostly as a "hey op did a good job here so kudos (pretty much just use it the same way i use kudos in ao3). i don’t really bother with downvoting - whether it’s here, or on youtube, as i don’t see a point. if i don’t like something, i’m just not going to watch it; no point in going out of my way to let someone else know i don’t like the thing they did.
It’s a democratic way of judging posts. Democracy is good.
Developed further, voting could replace moderators. I’d like to see that happen.
How could it replace moderators developed further?
Voting can’t replace mods, because the instance owner is legally responsible for what’s posted to their instance.
They are bound by law to remove illegal content immediately.
Also, mobbing is a form of democracy, too.See details on that “development” to which I referred, elsewhere in this thread.
Voting could replace mods in some ways, but in others it would be less effective (I know, not all mods are effective).
For instance, combatting spam; more users would have to see the spam and downvote it to have it removed (presumably in this system, a post could be removed when it reaches a certain downvote threshold? Not sure how else it would replace mods).
Additionally, content moderators and admins do actually do at least one other good thing; they look at and remove illegal or seriously upsetting material. Unfortunately, Lemmy has had several issues with csam being posted by presumably bots – good, active content moderators remove this as quickly as possible, protecting more of the users on their instances than a downvote threshold.
Outside of having some sort of threshold, I’m not sure I have a good picture of how downvotes could replace mods? Human oversight is really key to a lot of accurate and effective decision making; I’m sure we’ve all dealt with fully automated systems and know the pain of that.
The Democratic system of forum management to which I refer would work basically like this.
You choose who to speak to. You keep a list. Rating, flagging and tagging other forum members. (as opposed to having it done for you by a moderator)
This list can be something that you personally create. It can also be gotten from a friend or somebody who’s opinion you respect. It could be provided as a service, thus emulating the role of moderator. It could also be dictated to you, in the case of legally forbidden stuff. The list that you use might be the sum of several lists, tweaked over time to suit you.
(One term I’ve heard for this is “a system of silos”. Though I don’t really get the reference.)
It’s an idea that’s going around.
This is just a block list system. You can already do this now.
Oh, that’s an interesting idea. It’s more nuanced than just relying on upvotes, and sort of democratises the role of moderator! I was thinking maybe reporting would come into it somewhere but I see that the idea you’re describing has more depth than I was picturing. I’d be up for using a system like that, I think!
Re this, though:
It could also be dictated to you, in the case of legally forbidden stuff.
Is that just admins? Does that decision sort of shift mod responsibility upwards, leaving a good majority of decisions in the hands of the public but ultimately leaving a few powerful people with more global “modding” capability still? Not trying to nitpick or be antagonistic, this sounds like a cool system to use, I’m just trying to understand
However you slice it, if mandates are handed down by the legal authorities, this is the form (black lists, added to local lists, informing filters) it would probably take.
Ah yeah I hadn’t thought about legal authorities. I guess that would entail local police forces monitoring Lemmy and blacklisting and subsequently investigating specific users or bots once they post something illegal, which seems not so feasible sadly. But, definitely up for a more democratised system of modding generally!
How are legal mandates handled in lemmy presently?
No idea honestly mate, but what I meant when I brought up the illegality was really that it’s usually very disturbing content, which mods catch and remove before loads of people have to see it.
If it’s a new account posting that stuff, I don’t know how the system we’re discussing would prevent loads of users having to see it - altho I guess if those blacklists of users were collaborative and the person or team whose list you’ve “subscribed” to catch it, maybe that solves the issue?
I think it’s good for judging points and whatnot, but there’s definitely some places that could not have mods replaced by votes. I agree when it comes to most communities though. Have a great day! :D
You sound like a serf arguing for the need for kings
The up/down vote system directs the ranking algorithm on how to order posts and comments, and it visually signals to the user the relative popularity of a comment.
This, imo, is a wildly underappreciated mechanic for combating a lot of the harmful issues people associate with social media.
Most people recognize that discourse on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. is designed to divide and inflame people. the reddit-style downvote is remarkably effective at addressing this:
It does two key things in particular:
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Downvoted comments are down ranked and hidden, so people are exposed to less toxic content.
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If people do engage with unpopular comments, the negative score influences how people engage with them. On Facebook, commenting to defend Biden’s Israel policy will get elevated and create viscous fights. On Lemmy, it will get flagged with a virtual dunce cap. You can dunk on it, but there’s no point in arguing with it: we can all see that the argument is already over. Laugh and ignore.
Taken together, these discourage people from feeding trolls, and in doing so reduce the incentive to post something uncivil or stupid. It’s a remarkably powerful tool to address a huge problem, and I wish more people understood this.
Votes also make it very obvious when people react based on their wishful thinking — when a comment is factually true but is downvoted anyway, or vice versa. A good barometer of the sentiment in a community.
Yes, yes and yes. Unless it is overrun/diverted by bots & shills, which is a corruption silently allowed by reddit to serve its corporate agenda. Reddit, being proprietary and closed-source, does not disclose the specifics of its voting system, which grants it some plausible deniability in the face of accusations of bias. Lemmy and Kbin etc have the advantage of being opensource, transparent, forkable, etc. whether or not you’re in line with its creator’s political standing.
Wonderful explanation! I will continue to up/down vote posts and comments as I see fit. 😊
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No real weight for the system I think. Theres a lot less people though, so if I see the same guy like 5 times in a row with -8 comments, I’m more inclined to think that person is a prick because thats how humans are built.
Its not going to stop them posting or push them to the bottom by default or anything though.
