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Downvotes. If the post/comment is inappopriate, report it. If you disagree strongly with the point reply. If you don’t just move on with your day.
If downvote isn't a disagree button, then upvote shouldn't be an agree button either. Anyway, whenever you give people a single set of binary options to "react to a comment" (true/false, yes/no, on/off) they'll always interpret it however they want.
I reserve downvotes solely for comments that don't contribute to the discussion. For example, if my comment said "I like ginger tea with lemons" as a reply to your comment about downvotes, I would downvote it.
Hey I too like ginger tea with lemons!
If it’s innocently irrelevant I either ignore it or reply “I don’t get it”. Either the commenter realised they replied in the wrong place or you get a fascinating insight into the thought processes that made it seem worth their time typing out.
If everyone would do it this way, downvotes could filter out noise. But even I found myself klicking at the downvote button for disagreeing with somebody. Maybe call it a noise button instead and give it a different icon?
I think that downvotes became so heavily used as a disagree button because they were linked to visibility and, especially in political forums, it was a way of burying your opponent's good arguments and then you could promote the weaker arguments. I sincerely believe that it's some poor fucker's job to go through and do this, although the whole chatGPT stuff means they're going to find themselves out of work soon.
Agreed, the downvote button is not a disagree button.
I decided to never downvote anyone here. Debating on if that extends to bots or not though.
I've come close to breaking that rule, but I'm pretty sure I haven't yet.
Even bots should have the error of their ways explained to them (or rather their handlers). If they don’t listen and learn then it’s time for the mods to drop the ban-hammer.
I've become so anti-bot recently, I don't want to see any of them here. Reddit is absolutely drowning in them. The comment stealing bots were the tipping point for me. And then seeing "content" bots here aggravated me.
It makes me wonder if I'll be an old man yelling at the damned androids when they're walking around in the future lol
Oh right, the spam bots infested the place. I think it’s inevitable that if this place gets popular enough it’s going to suffer many of the same issues as Reddit. It’s not about the tech it’s about the people and people never change.
I think/hope that without karma the incentive to spam bots won't be here. We'll see.
Honestly, I think the downvote button was made for a hellhole, its helpful for only those trying to derail a conversation with their own anger or sadness, "why not get a mod?" ...you got me
So I see you've got 8 downvotes for saying this, that's because some people have a stupid personal rule that says if someone complains about downvotes then they should be automatically downvoted. This is a stupid redditism. Downvote me as well if you want but know that here we can see who you are if we decide we actually give a shit.
That’s why I’m so pleased that Liftoff! only shows the aggregate number. It’s so much calmer here when you don’t even notice that some proportion of people here are mashing that stupid downvote button.