Even though it’s meaningless I have seen some people in different communities voting down comments and posts they don’t agree with like on Reddit which is unfortunate.
For the piracy community I hope it doesn’t just turn into passive aggressive comments directing people to the megathread all the time.
I like helping people dig for obscure stuff
you’re right according to official reddiquette. the intended use of the downvote button is to de-emphasize irrelevant content and content that otherwise doesn’t contribute to the conversation
i have seen it argued that its intended use use doesn’t matter versus how the majority of people actively use it, similar to language and symbols. usage evolves with time, so meaning evolves with it. personally i prefer the intended usage but i can see where ppl who make this argument are coming from.
the lemmy instance i joined doesn’t have a downvote button at all!
tbh, i’d be surprised if most people ever even bothered to even open the reddiquette or terms of service or anything else. i’m not trying to put anyone down or be condescending – i didn’t read any of this when signing up either! i only knew about it because i read discussions about how votes should be used on reddit lol
it’s true, most people are lazy and don’t read and intuitively assume the downvote button is a dislike button. it’s unfortunate, but i don’t know if anything can reasonably be done about stuff like that because i don’t think it’s going to change that people don’t read agreements or rules or guidelines before using a platform or program or service.
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