• snooggums@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I downvote comments that promote hateful ideologies, whether or no they were posted in bad faith. I also downvote posts that derail the conversation, whether or not I think they were posted in bad faith because it is impossible to know if someone is posting in good faith from an individual post. By the time a pattern is clear the thread is derailed.

      Context also matters, because the same post about grilled mushrooms as a substitute for grilled steaks will be posted in good faith to different posts and be a net positive or negative depending on the post. A post about grilling in general? Positive, because it adds to the topic! A post about the best cut of beef for grilling? Negative, because it derails the thread to be about not eating beef.

      Sure, people should not be downvoting non-important topics or views that they could just block instead. But a lot of people also assume bad faith when someone disagrees with them, so that isn’t good criteria either.

    • superkret@feddit.org
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      1 month ago

      It’s supposed to be for whatever the fuck you want to use it for. There’s no downvote police on lemmy.
      Personally, I upvote every reply I get and nothing else.

    • Farid@startrek.website
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      1 month ago

      Ultimately, it’s supposed to be used to make post/comments less visible, for whatever reason.

          • RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            Sometimes it seems like Lemmy users sort by most negative first just so they can keep dogpiling on the comments with negative vote score.

            Which is a Reddit behaviour, and probably came from whatever existed before Reddit too.