downvotes is just a way to show that you disagree with something. It is not there to punish you. People choose some topics to engage actively by participating in the comments while in some other topics they prefer to express their opinion just by agree/disagree (upvote/downvote). Now you call a whole community toxic just because not everyone agrees with you…
poopkins@lemmy.world 11 months ago
This really gets to the heart of the issue: downvoting a comment that one doesn’t agree with is precisely what creates a toxic community. Having opposing opinions is indeed exactly what makes conversation insightful. Imagine listening to a debate where one side has their microphone muted; that would be very dull and quite literally an echo chamber.
I personally welcome opposing views and often find myself upvoting entire threads full of constructive conversation, regardless of which side I lean to, because the discourse invites the conversation. Having this additional dimension behind a submitted post is what I came to Lemmy for. Unfortunately, the sentiment on the platform further and further shifts towards a mentality that a comment that doesn’t immediately reinforce a comment I agree with must be downvoted.
gohixo9650@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
you’re overthinking it. There is not even a “global” karma like reddit. Your up/down-votes are not counting towards your “internet points”. They are in a per-comment basis and they’re a quick way to interact with opinions. Would you prefer everyone commenting “agree”/“disagree” ?
poopkins@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I’m not sure how some measure of internet karma weighs into the point I’m trying to make. The point rating of a comment determines its positioning in a thread, sometimes even altogether hiding it in some Lemmy clients when it falls below some threshold.
By this measure, the visibility of comments is determined by their individual score, and to reuse my analogy from before, effectively determines the volume at which voices are heard. What I often see here on Lemmy, is that like-minded and reinforcing comments are amplified, drowning out insightful ones.
No, I don’t think people should make comments like you’ve suggested, much in the same way that votes shouldn’t be used to achieve the same. Should I be downvoting your comment because I disagree with it? Or upvoting it because this is an interesting point of debate? I choose for the latter.
gohixo9650@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
I get your point. For me (and I suppose for some other people) works a bit different. When I’m not actively participating in a conversation, up/down vote is a quick way to show agreement/disagreement. I cannot upvote something that I complete disagree. However, in cases that I’m actively engaging, I don’t use it as a punishment tool so I just abstain. Like here, I weren’t downvoting you because it was an active ongoing conversation and I expressed myself by comments. You were actively engaging in good faith (I suppose) so it was fine. But at the same time I could not upvote either the comments in which I was finding myself disagreeing (I think I upvoted 1-2 at the end). However people are “passing-by” and up/downvote to show their view. Don’t take it as your punishment. But also you cannot “demand” that since you wrote something that you believe contributes to a discussion everyone should also believe that your points were so well made that should be upvoted even though they disagree. By this logic we should upvote everything that is longer that 5 words.