Lemmy

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I had forgotten how great it is to see the number of downvotes (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I've been so used to judging a post just by its popularity on reddit, but it's actually so much more useful to have an idea of the downvote ratio. I'm glad we have that here.

It was a scandal when it disappeared from YouTube, but I didn't realize it was missing from Reddit too for much longer!

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sure, but if you can see the score ahead of time (and especially if comments in the UI are sorted by score), all it does it create an echo-chamber. It's self-reinforcing. If the post's score only showed after you up/down-voted and then you couldn't change your vote, that'd be entirely different (not perfect either).

I also don't care if other people found a post "positive" or "negative" or "neutral" in general. Truthful, well thought-out comments get downvoted into oblivion despite being true, simply because they aren't mainstream views. Likewise, mainstream views with no basis in reality get upvoted incessantly, probably because humans psychologically like believing that their beliefs are true and seeing "confirmation" of their beliefs is seen as a good thing. This is what is meant by self-reinforcing echo-chamber: fringe or dissenting opinions get hidden, and "more of the same"/"towing the line" conformity get promoted.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

all it does it create an echo-chamber. It’s self-reinforcing.

Totally agree. Also, I'm taking into an account that this is a view of people who have internet -> browse lemmy -> browse or subbed to the community (interested in) -> saw the post -> read comments -> default sort (i believe lemmy's default is hot which is new?) so definitely biased

I also don’t care if other people found a post “positive” or “negative” or “neutral” in general. Truthful, well thought-out comments get downvoted into oblivion despite being true, simply because they aren’t mainstream views. Likewise, mainstream views with no basis in reality get upvoted incessantly, probably because humans psychologically like believing that their beliefs are true and seeing “confirmation” of their beliefs is seen as a good thing. This is what is meant by self-reinforcing echo-chamber: fringe or dissenting opinions get hidden, and “more of the same”/“towing the line” conformity get promoted.

I stated that it's good to know "what people who read this post or comment think of it" regardless of post/comment truthfulness. It's useful (for me) to assess whether many people agree with, against, or it's controversial.

PS: This information wouldn't change my opinion about a post/comment.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I see what you're saying, but I don't understand why you find any value (or usefulness) in seeing what people think of it. What do you learn if a lot of people have agreed with it, disagreed with it, or if the opinion is split?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Well, different post categories indicate different meanings (usefulness).

For example, in political communities, I can get a rough estimate of the majority of users' views/ideologies regarding a specific topic.