It’s just such an echo chamber on these sites. Whatever is popular gets upvotes and goes to the top, whatever isn’t popular receives downvotes and sinks to the bottom. People feel peer pressured to vote similarly to others on comments, the cycle continues.
One of the reasons why I didn’t want Lemmy to grow any more than it did. Keeping the community small but active allows people to discuss and debate without massive pile-ons occurring.
I wonder if it would be better without votes at all: You have to comment to interact, you can’t be passive. That way mods can deal with spam more effectively. There is no way for me to tell which users are abusing their votes to silence people rather than interact respectfully. I hate it when I comment a legitimate argument (or worse someone else has and I agree with it) and it gets downvoted with no comments at all. It feels like I’ve committed the horrible act of having an opinion.
Downvotes are disabled on my instance and I think it helps a decent amount of what you’re saying. Only seeing how many others agree with someone does still lend a decent amount to the discussion I think. It’s way starker to see someone still on 1 when the person they’re arguing with is on 10 in my opinion.
I haven’t had votes visible since I joined Lemmy and it has definitely been a more enjoyable experience. Whether that means it would be better without them altogether, I can’t really say.
unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone 7 months ago
It’s just such an echo chamber on these sites. Whatever is popular gets upvotes and goes to the top, whatever isn’t popular receives downvotes and sinks to the bottom. People feel peer pressured to vote similarly to others on comments, the cycle continues.
Ilandar@aussie.zone 7 months ago
One of the reasons why I didn’t want Lemmy to grow any more than it did. Keeping the community small but active allows people to discuss and debate without massive pile-ons occurring.
unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone 7 months ago
I wonder if it would be better without votes at all: You have to comment to interact, you can’t be passive. That way mods can deal with spam more effectively. There is no way for me to tell which users are abusing their votes to silence people rather than interact respectfully. I hate it when I comment a legitimate argument (or worse someone else has and I agree with it) and it gets downvoted with no comments at all. It feels like I’ve committed the horrible act of having an opinion.
princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 months ago
Downvotes are disabled on my instance and I think it helps a decent amount of what you’re saying. Only seeing how many others agree with someone does still lend a decent amount to the discussion I think. It’s way starker to see someone still on 1 when the person they’re arguing with is on 10 in my opinion.
Ilandar@aussie.zone 7 months ago
I haven’t had votes visible since I joined Lemmy and it has definitely been a more enjoyable experience. Whether that means it would be better without them altogether, I can’t really say.