People don't like rejection. Evolutionarily rejection from peers/society means danger. Even if it's not dangerous now, the brain (especially the amygdala) reacts the same. People get anxious, defensive, etc. It takes time and reflection to accept that maybe what you said was wrong or socially unacceptable. Internet is too fast to reflect, it's much easier to respond in anger and then forget it all.
this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
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No Stupid Questions
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Totally this. It just sucks to put work into a comment or a post and be downvoted to hell.
I mostly don't worry about it, many times text just loses some of the nuance that speech has and misunderstandings are more common. My most down voted comments on reddit were mostly in subreddits like nvidiashield and had the temerity to say something negative about their choice of streaming box, I've never understood the need to defend things like that.
Why specifically the amygdala? I would've assumed it'd originate in older parts of the brain
It's the emotion center for the brain, especially negative emotions like fear and anxiety. Older parts are often "responsible" for keeping you alive, so breathing, heart beating, etc.
In the early days of link aggregators there was a strong implicit rule in most communities that the downvote button should NEVER be used for disagreement - only to mark responses that a user felt did not contribute to the overall conversation.
Nowadays people hit downvote on anything they don't agree with. People don't like seeing a large count of people who clicked the "You're wrong" button on what they said.
I don't know why reddit thought that people would use it any other way, they were basically asking people not to use it how the vast majority would presume it should be used.
The reddiquette was strongly enforced by the community for the first several years. Eventually reddit got Eternal Septembered and it was just too many newbies for the experienced ones to police.
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I think it's simple. When you post something or reply to a post, you're sharing a part of yourself with your community. Down votes mean people don't like what you shared.
That's why I upvote liberally and downvote sparingly. I'd rather my input be encouraging than discouraging.
On reddit, reaching a certain negative score threshold would often hide your comment, meaning that your contribution to the thread would be hidden. As the site got older, karma began to be used as an initial leaping off point for participation in some communities, making down votes socially expensive for casual participants, since that slowed their ability to interact with the more restrictive communities in the site.
downvotes REALLY bother me. why it bothers me personally: i have severe mental health issues (to the point of disability). due to how i grew up, i heavily internalized being and accepting that i'm always bad and horrible and wrong and punishing myself for it. when i get criticized or downvoted - even if it's silly - i feel HORRIBLE, because obviously i MUST'VE done something VERY BAD and VERY WRONG and i must be PUNISHED and i must CORRECT. and it's even more frustrating when i don't know what to correct. bonus, i have autism and adhd, so i can say things considered "wrong" and not know why, but people won't explain it to me because apparently i should magically know. and i don't want to be a bad person, but now i'm suddenly a bad person and i don't know what to do about it.
this is just ME. i don't think it applies to most people. and inb4 "bruh it's just a downvote, it's not that deep, touch grass" AGREED. BIG AGREE. but if you understand anything about psychology, it can take a very long time to undo stuff that's so deeply ingrained from childhood, if it can be undone at all. i have actually heavily improved in this area in terms of recognizing i'm not necessarily wrong and rarely need to be punished, but the emotional reaction sadly has not changed much.
also, some (not all) people just seem to use downvotes as a personal attack, and that's just annoying as hell. i think people can relate to this much more.
i try hard not to downvote, because i don't think it's necessary most of the time. people seem to downvote the silliest things...
I mean this with the utmost respect, but this might not be the platform for you mate. That kinda feels like knowing that you have a gambling addiction and going to a casino.
i've been on reddit for... 6-7 years? it's fine. i mean by that logic i should unalive myself, because everything is triggering. at best, it gives me an opportunity to practice my coping skills. at worst... i feel uncomfortable for a bit, don't cope well, and whine about it to a friend lmao (which, to me, is also me trying to confirm i didn't do anything Wrong)
Again with due respect that's a big 180 from how you described it in your first post. That doesn't sound like mental illness that just sounds like the human condition.
I think sometimes especially on some of these federated sites, can be trolls or bots. Could be something the commenter said, or could be a combination of them.
there was just mention of a spam bot invading some magazines the other day. I wouldn't doubt if there's downvote bots
Yeah, story of my life. Me too. Especially the part about "I don't know what I did wrong, but people won't explain it to me because they feel like I should magically know"
I totally identify with and agree with you. I also have to note that if there's a small amount of downvotes that are within the margin of error, it might be a misclick or mistouch, especially if the upvote and downvote arrows are REALLY close together. I've gone back to look at some of the stuff I voted on only to find that I'd accidentally downvotes due to an overly sensitive gaming mouse, fat fingers, and / or just being too busy laughing at a funny meme or being excited by an amazing post and not really paying close attention to where I was clicking.
I corrected those accidental downvotes, but I'm OCD about stuff like that because I don't like downvoting people either. So I can easily imagine that casuals who are clumsly or really excited about a post they like might downvote by accident and not go back and fix it. Totally serious here. A lot of downvotes are probably supposed to be upvotes.
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It’s a validation thing if not a competitive thing. They want/need the most points or to feel like there’s support for their views. Just a bit of sociology
fake internet points dont matter at an individual level on this platform - up/down votes on posts affect the weight metric about how they get displayed in the feed but dont really seem to matter too much either.
as others have said, it's a mental/cognitive thing - but it's also social to the extent that each online community has its own social rules, some unspoken, that everyone mindlessly obeys because if you dont you'll get shadowbanned/silenced by power tripping moderators.
on kbin we have reputation, which is nearly impossible to keep positive, because it counts downvotes but not upvotes. They are working on fixing it though.
huh.
@arkcom Yeah it's so odd that they count Boosts instead of Upvotes. Why do we need two??
From what I've gathered, Ernest had been trying to follow general fediverse conventions where possible (boosts and @ at the beginning of mags), but in the meantime Lemmy got popular, so he's going back to make things more lemmylike. Reputation got caught in the middle.
Boosts are like retweets and Upvotes are like likes. On a threaded discussion format like this, boosts are kind of pointless, so nobody uses them.
Thank you! I was wondering why my reputation was negative, I have mostly up votes in my profile
It's extra annoying, because lemmy people can downvote, but they can't (as far as I know) boost.
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When used correctly (for irrelevant/trolling/toxic comments etc., not for disagreement) it is useful as a community filter.
Been testing Kbin and Tildes, and I like the way Tildes does it. There are upvotes, no downvotes. Instead, there are also labels that can be applied like joke and off-topic. There's even an analogue of gilding via an exemplary label which has an 8-hour cool down and requires typing a brief reason.
Tildes wants to encourage longer, thoughtful discussion so jokes get pushed to the bottom by default. Currently no option to custom sort that I could see if, for example, you want to read funny comments instead—and that's fine.
Point is, a better system than upvotes/downvotes would be nice as a general feature for aggregators going forward.
Ernest has said he's open to removing downvotes altogether. I'm sure it will be brought up again.
https://codeberg.org/Kbin/kbin-core/issues/3
I hope they don't do this, I'll have to jump ship again. Downvotes are useful for seeing how a comment is actually being received. Say something that sounds true but isn't? You can see the downvotes, without it you only see the upvotes and upvote the person thinking it is the truth. This happened on youtube, you can't tell which videos are actually giving you the right knowledge for say a technical problem, all the bad tutorials just seem to be upvoted. I've also seen highly upvoted comments on reddit that were completely full of shit, you can't see how many people downvoted.
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That would be a pity -personally I think downvotes, for all they can be abused, are a necessary counterpart to upvotes if you’re going to have a voting system at all. “All attention is good attention” doesn’t work well in real life or online.
Now if a change was made to allow individual magazines to choose upvotes+downvotes, only upvotes or none at all, I think there’s a better case for that - let people try different systems for different circumstances,
i could be wrong, but i feel like upvotes make downvotes unnecessary, as upvoted content will naturally be recognized, while comments that don't get upvotes probably aren't valuable (and they might totally be valuable... just unnoticed)
i will say... i do like that kbin shows upvotes and downvotes together. feels less shitty.
alternatively... could be more shitty if you get a ton of downvotes and no upvotes!
it has literally never been used correctly and if you believe otherwise I'll downvote you.
Its in human nature to fear/dislike being rejected. Obviously downvotes are not nearly as bad as being rejected in real life but its more of death by a thousand cuts type of thing... Which is why I suspect most, if not all social media ends up being toxic to the person's mental state.
I dont care about downvotes on a conflicted issue. But multiple downvotes on a oneline seemingly totally innocent and probably boring comment and my head wonder what I said wrong and I over-analyze it. Brain just wont shut up about it, stupid as it is. Though those same totally innocent and rather obvious comments that very often gets the biggest scores too.
It is VERY rare I use the downvote button myself.
cause it feelsbadman
Downvotes should solely be used as a swarm level of moderation for bad content and a necessary evil.
What it actually ends up with is the disagree button on dissenting opinions most of the time. The voting itself is supposed to let quality content rise, tips instead towards a hive mind and the votes parody and kill the discussion. It feels bad, because it is stupid and of course the personal emotional level mentioned in other comments.
What works for a link aggregator doesn't work for a forum. It is a shame forums moved into Discord and reddit. The old school way has actual advantages and unifying and improving the UI for forums would go a long way. Like federated forums, but not really, imagined Steam forums as a concept, but with the proven full fledged forum designs.
It's mainly a feeling of rejection, as others have said. But also, when I post a non-joke comment that gets downvoted but not replied to, I really want to know what the point of disagreement was. It's frustrating to not know what nerve I've hit. The negative number next to my comment tells me nothing useful.
Also Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD) is a thing.
Number go up good :), number go down bad >:(.
Psychologically, I don’t think it matters much what the numbers represent other than that they’re YOUR numbers.
I've never really paid much attention to it. Read, post, move on. A bit like you would on a Forum or Chan.
I too never go back and check if a post is downvoted. I don't really care about it.
Probably because they tie it to their own personal self-image or self-worth. Of course, in the grand scheme of things, downvotes are virtual and don't mean a thing in the real world.
But people give it value, therefore it does have meaning in the real world. The act generates a feeling in someone, and it says "I don't like what you just said." People want to be liked.
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