Personally, I use downvotes to say “I disagree with this and/or it is a stupid/bad/bigoted/etc take, but I do not wish to spend the time and effort to respond and get dragged into a text-based mudfight
So far, a great articulation of what (I guess) most downvoters are thinking.
with someone who is unlikely to speak to me politely, no matter how polite I try to be in my rebuttal.”
But I’m not sure you’re being honest with yourself here. Certainly not if you’re talking about my comments, which are always polite if sometimes a bit forthright because I’m a direct kind of person.
I like having a way to say “no, bad, stop that”
Nicely put, again. But then: why should your antagonist “stop that”? They should shut up just because you disagree with them?
We come back to the crucial element: civility. If one believes in free speech, and the right of others to have their own opinions and to have a voice, I still see absolutely justification for downvoting a thoughtfully expressed opinion.
I don’t agree with you here but I respect your right to have an opinion and I would never think of downvoting you for it. If that comes across as sanctimonious, so be it. I prefer to see it as just coherent with values. Which I’m sure you share, by the way.
IronKrill@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
While it is easy to fall into this trap of disagree downvotes, they should really not be used that way. All that does is turn them into a popularity contest. Downvotes should be used on comments that do not improve the thread. This may be because they are wrong, made in bad faith, rude, or otherwise, but not simply because you disagree. Ideally we would have different buttons for this like the forums of old, but no one seems interested in that nowadays.
mryessir@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
What buttons were them?
IronKrill@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Instead of up/down buttons you would have a set of buttons such as “Agree”, “Disagree”, “Funny”, “Useful”, etcetera. The only website I know of that still uses these is Ravelry.
mryessir@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
Ahh, that is a neat thought. Thanks for elaborating and sharing.
medgremlin@midwest.social 2 months ago
Typically, the things I disagree with are the things like bad faith arguments, lies, rudeness, or bigoted ideals that purport that not all humans deserve equal rights, etc.