I have more respect for you for explaining and taking the time to reply. I have even upvoted your comment, despite disagreeing with it.
For me, upvotes and downvotes should not be used as agree/disagree buttons. Instead, they should be about “brings interesting points to the table”/“this comment adds nothing”.
But that’s not how the majority of people view them. Realizing that, that’s why I don’t believe this system works, as it dicentivizes discussions and - in my opinion - helps creating echo chambers.
A good example of a forum that uses only upvotes is Tildes. You need an invite to participate, but you can lurk and see what people do over there. Popular opinions still get to the top and get highlighted (resolving the issue of guaranteeing that the most helpful comments appear first, which is important for posts asking about tech issues and whatnot), and less popular opinions still appear down below. But here’s the thing: in my experience in that forum, those less popular opinions are engaged with far more than what I see in Reddit, piefed or lemmy. Why? Because you can’t downvote them. There’s no button for that. If you want to express disagreement, you actually have to do that.
Because otherwise, using my comment as example:
what did people disagree with?
The suggestion that the downvote button shouldn’t exist?
The suggestion that neither of them should exist?
Me calling 4chan community trash?
All of the above?
No discussion is added, no new insights appear, nothing. Without your comment, this comment that I’m writing now wouldn’t exist either.
Thus my point, we are discussing and bringing new insights to the table.
I have more respect for you for explaining and taking the time to reply. I have even upvoted your comment, despite disagreeing with it.
For me, upvotes and downvotes should not be used as agree/disagree buttons. Instead, they should be about “brings interesting points to the table”/“this comment adds nothing”.
But that’s not how the majority of people view them. Realizing that, that’s why I don’t believe this system works, as it dicentivizes discussions and - in my opinion - helps creating echo chambers.
A good example of a forum that uses only upvotes is Tildes. You need an invite to participate, but you can lurk and see what people do over there. Popular opinions still get to the top and get highlighted (resolving the issue of guaranteeing that the most helpful comments appear first, which is important for posts asking about tech issues and whatnot), and less popular opinions still appear down below. But here’s the thing: in my experience in that forum, those less popular opinions are engaged with far more than what I see in Reddit, piefed or lemmy. Why? Because you can’t downvote them. There’s no button for that. If you want to express disagreement, you actually have to do that.
Because otherwise, using my comment as example:
The suggestion that the downvote button shouldn’t exist?
The suggestion that neither of them should exist?
Me calling 4chan community trash?
All of the above?
No discussion is added, no new insights appear, nothing. Without your comment, this comment that I’m writing now wouldn’t exist either.
Thus my point, we are discussing and bringing new insights to the table.