this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2024
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"Voting" and "discussion" are separate things. The old forums did not have voting but still had polarization, personal attacks, hellthreads, etc.
The problem is that Reddit/Facebook turned "voting" from a tool meant to measure "quality" (e.g, this post is relevant to the community, this comment does not add to the discussion) into a tool to measure "popularity" (I agree with this, so I vote up. I don't like this, so I downvote).
Either get rid of voting altogether, or let's bring back a culture where "votes" are meant to signal quality.
Redditors did that, rather than reddit I'd argue. Still the same result of becoming a far less useful heuristic though.
Not really sure how to "fix" a system like that, which depends on the masses to do something correctly. They... don't.
What alternatives to votes would you propose to handle this better? Because I have no doubt the same thing will happen here too...
It's just how people work, especially when things get heated. That said, perhaps that's a poor example as a heated discussion isn't necessary a helpful/constructive one...