True, but doesnt really establish how others react around them.

Or if you aren't sure if someone is being sarcastic and forgot the /s.

I've also used it to try to find out what country someone was in when relevant to the discuss (ie, they're talking about relevant laws in whatever jurisdiction they're in)

This right here. I won’t go downvote/upvote their other comments, but I will get a vibe for the person themselves. Usually when I think someone is arguing in bad faith, I’ll check their comments to see if they’re just a troll or simply someone I’m disagreeing with. If they appear to conduct themselves in good faith in general, then instead of dismissing them as a troll, I’ll actually engage and try to learn more from their perspective. If it’s just a troll though, it’s pointless, so I’ll downvote the original comment and move on.

How else are we supposed to find out is someone is a bigot asking bad faith questions and/or trolling? Comment and post history helps us decide if we should ignore, block, report, or respond kindly to someone.

I’m sorry… you want Lemmy to be more like YouTube?

Because I think you might be in a minority of one there.

You’re the only person I’ve ever heard say something positive about YouTube comments sections

I see your point but I don’t agree with removing the post history or otherwise hiding it. For better or worse, post history is part of the social construct.

Think of it another way: hang out in a community long enough and you’ll have lived through the post history of other participants anyway.

I have seen this go badly and to reiterate I do appreciate the sentiment: I used to be very active on a Reddit wristwatch sub - people who had previously posted in subs related to counterfeit watches often got a hard time whenever they posted in other places (one sub in particular). It seemed that some commenters could never accept that some people had both “reps” and “gens”, or that some people wanted to have a good knowledge of “reps” (to avoid being fleeced on the second hand market, for instance).

Fortunately, there were enough level-headed folk (and more reasonable subs) that didn’t adopt this attitude.

We can choose to look or not look and we can choose whether to act or not act on what we find. And one way or the other the post history is there anyway.

I can understand the argument that trawling through years worth of posts to see if someone ever said something naughty, because it doesn’t allow people to grow and change.

That being said, having very little or only a few innocuous comments means you can’t tell if someone is arguing in bad faith, and by the time you can tell in the discussion itself, they’ve already won. That, and in real life people have reputations for a reason. A clean slate for each and every comment (or a small group of comments) would lead to chan behavior, which is a net negative.

Something like 6 months of history, the most upvoted/downvoted/controversial comments (and of course their context) might be an alternative. I’m not sure how well hiding history and silencing users would work: that could just force trolls to make new accounts, which makes things worse.

Had a guy call me “boomer” online a couple of times. Had to point out that “boomer” was from “baby boomer” and those people were about 65 and over. Turned out he was in his 60s and the insult didnt register.

Typical attitude of someone who’s commented about rabbits. /s

I think we’ve all done that.

Why?

Brigading, yes.

I’ve never heard of this referred to as brigading, but it’s definitely in the same spirit. Brigading usually means getting an external group of people to visit a post/comment solely to vote. It’s effectively crowdsourcing vote manipulation.

I don’t think voting down somebody’s profile counts as vote manipulation because you still only have one voice, but it’s still incredibly petty and I’ve heard Reddit even had a feature such that profile votes don’t affect karma, despite not being banworthy to my knowledge. As a rule of thumb I don’t check post history or even notice usernames because it doesn’t really matter to me, unless a profile is genuinely entertaining to go through.

I don’t have a problem with random idiots, if someone genuinely likes Trump and believes in authoritarianism, that is fine by me. I don’t like them, but at least they’re engaging in good faith.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say they’re engaging in good faith…

I was like 13 years on reddit and never knew what my karma was and never looked at anyones profile, except once when all the replies were: dude your comment history is fucked, seek help.

It helps me curb my desire to reply to. Someone when I know it won’t do anything and will only result in frustration, a way to satisfy my more argumentative/salty side without putting that out into the world. I only reply if I really have something to say as a result. I don’t go through their history though.

Argue the point not the person. I’m glad that the votes don’t really matter here, it means no one’s voice gets silenced like on reddit or tildes.

it doesnt matter on lemmy like it did on reddit: on reddit you would have your posting rate degraded. i know of no penalty on lemmy for being downvoted.

honestly i’d rather be downvoted than blocked on either platform. argue with me and express anger or whatever but cutting me out of the conversation is beyond what i consider to be acceptable. ignoring is onething. preventing me from seeing whats happening and engaging is fucking ridiculous.