this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2024
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On second thought, maybe I do want an "us vs. them" with "them" being people who use downvotes as an "I disagree" button.
Disclaimer: this was meant as a joke.
I did not realize there were downvote rules. How am I supposed to use my downvote?
There aren't, but it's worth thinking about what a vote does. In Lemmy and similar systems, comments with higher scores are listed first and seen by more people. A downvote means "fewer people should see this".
Now perhaps you just believe fewer people should see things you disagree with. That's not my position, but I won't try to talk you out of it here. If that's not your position, however and you instead believe civil, well-reasoned discussion between people who have different viewpoints is valuable, then using votes to simply express agreement or disagreement will not serve to promote such discussion.
How about a second vote system for agree/disagree, because I agree with you in principle and try to use it this way, but in practice the votes are definitely used for that. Now that I write it out though I realize people will just double smash both buttons when they disagree anyway.
I wonder whether up/down, like/dislike, etc... is the right concept for discussions. Slashdot's concept of attaching a label like "insightful" or "off-topic" when rating a comment seems like a good idea to me; the UI nudges people toward the admin's preferred reasons for voting.