I hate that I always compare Lemmy to Reddit, but Reddit used to have (not sure if they still do) guidelines called “Reddiquette” that included guidelines about upvoting and downvoting. I don’t remember the specifics (and sending too much of my browser traffic to Reddit makes me feel dirty) but one of the guidelines was not to upvote/downvote on the basis of agreement/disagreement with the content.

On Lemmy, I’m honestly a bit lax about upvoting and downvoting at all. (I’m trying to be better about it.) Buy when I do upvote/downvote, I try to do so on the basis of whether the comment/post “adds to” or “subtracts from” the community or conversation. I can disagree with one comment’s take on some subject but still upvote them if they’ve given me a more nuanced perspective on the issue. If they’re just parrotting well-known talking points and not being thoughtful with their posts, I may downvote them evren if I agree with their ultimate stance.

I’m just mostly wondering how folks on Lemmy think about upvotes/downvotes and what implications that has for the content here.

  • Prewash_Required@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    I’m not sure if this is just another way of saying what others have said, but I also upvote if something accomplished the theme of the community. The example that comes to mind is from the other site, but if something on r/mademesmile actually made me smile, I upvoted. As for downvotes, I usually save them for posts that I want to be less visible for whatever reason. Sometimes that is because I disagree sometimes it is because they are reposts, or low effort trolling, etc. Right or wrong, that’s how I do it.