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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   1997 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 22, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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How do you use voting systems on social media/fora? (likes, upvotes/downvotes, etc.)

Personally, I almost only upvote/like posts when I'm sorting by newest - as that's when my upvote has the most marginal value to promote a post - and I virtually never downvote/dislike. Past the point where my individual vote has substantial value to the algorithm, I simply don't care to leave my petty display of opinion. For those of you who do use your votes, here are some questions to reflect upon:

  • Are you selective with your votes or do you vote on most/all posts you see?
  • Do you find yourself upvoting people you disagree with due to the quality of their argument, or vice versa?
  • Do you downvote people you're arguing with or do you leave judgement entirely to the masses?
  • Do you remove the auto self-upvote on your posts/comments?

I've never been a real heavy voter, I write a lot more than I vote, and I don't write as much as some. I suppose I feel like I don't enjoy the process of considering "does this comment deserve an upvote or not, does it deserve it more or less than some other comment", and such things. I probably do less than a dozen votes a month I guess. I kind of suspect there's a lot of heavy voters who write little to nothing as well.

I tend to upvote things that really stand out enough to think, I'm glad somebody made that point. Sometimes I upvote things that I think got beat up too hard or aren't popular enough to get a lot of upvotes due to the actual position being argued being not that well liked here. I don't really downvote much, even if I'm disagreeing with somebody, unless what they're saying is really over the top low-quality, though that often gets modded too.

I'd more tend to leave judgement to the masses in any argument I'm in. That's whose sake I'm really arguing for anyways. Getting at least some votes either way is a nice sign that somebody is at least seeing the discussion. I tend more to just not continue if I think the discussion is too low-quality to bother and nobody is watching rather than throw a bunch of downvotes around. Or of course if we end up basically agreeing and it doesn't feel like there's more worth saying.

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