If you don’t like it, block the bot?

I’m confused on why people would downvote threads that account for most of the content in this community

  • freamon@endlesstalk.org
    46·
    1 year ago

    I’m not upset at downvotes. My comment got plenty of 'em. It’s fine.

    If the meaning of them is so individual and nebulous, then I’m even more mystified why anyone would hand them out. You dislike something, but so what? What’s anyone supposed to do with that information? They can’t be interpreted as anything apparently. Lemmy’s userbase is too shallow and it’s sorting algorithms too unsophisticated for anything to get buried. So it’s an action without a goal, a petulant thumbs down that in most cases just leaves someone puzzled as to why it happened at all.

      • freamon@endlesstalk.org
        31·
        1 year ago

        Well, whilst I’m happy to chat about them in a ‘casual conversation’ thread when people are responding to me directly, this isn’t some hang-up of mine. This isn’t my post and it wasn’t me originally asking the question. I just decided to be an arsehole and redirect the question to the downvoters directly, because I suspected they’d never reply otherwise.

        Fundamentally, the question was “why downvote anything in a ‘Casual Conversation’ Community?”. When an OP is trying to build a Community up and asking for constructive criticism, what does a downvote mean in response to that? And so, after provoking a response, what have we ultimately arrived at? “Oh, you should ignore me. My pointless actions are those of a misanthrope”. This is not a win. No-one owes anyone a justification of course, but when it came, it’s not unreasonable to have hoped it would be better than that.

          • freamon@endlesstalk.org
            32·
            1 year ago

            Oh God no. Agree entirely. Least popular comment I’ve ever made. I trust we all had fun though: anyone who downvotes a post asking about downvotes is entirely up for a bit of mischief in return, surely.