this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2024
-15 points (20.0% liked)
ChatGPT
8975 readers
12 users here now
Unofficial ChatGPT community to discuss anything ChatGPT
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's true that there are no official guidelines on the use of upvotes and downvotes, but if they are used to bury comments and posts just because they don't align with your personal opinion, Lemmy is at risk of becoming a circle jerk and an echo chamber and I think that would be a great shame.
Above all else we should be encouraging participation, I don't want to think that there are potentially great posts and comments out there but that people aren't posting them because they're worried about downvotes. The freedom of expression means that on occasion you might have to read things that make you uncomfortable and that's OK.
I'm not sure anyone aspires for it to be anything more than that.
Such people are looking for a different medium. This is ersatz Reddit. We downvote. It's fundamental to the culture and the format. It doesn't have to appeal to everyone. There's the whole rest of the Fediverse, where AFAIK you will not find a single downvote.
Maybe I'm only speaking for myself, but as far as I'm aware my opinion isn't unique and I'm absolutely not here for a circle jerk or an echo chamber, they were my least favourite things about Reddit.
I'm aware of how people use downvotes in reality as opposed to how they would use them ideally in my opinion, I just think it would be a bit of a shame to end up where we left off if we have the opportunity to improve, especially if it means that new or controversial ideas are shared more freely and debate is a lot more open.
We say we're not. But we keep coming back to it. Lemmy is only better than Reddit in the sense that capital isn't exploiting us. But it's still Reddit in every other respect, and we get to engage in our stupid little addiction with less social harm.
There are lots of places we could go for meaningful discussion. And sometimes that happens here, too! But it happens in the context of the medium, which absolutely does encourage circle jerking, dog piling, groupthink, and meme culture. Look, you can use a chisel in place of a Phillips screwdriver, but you're going to get hurt a lot. Giving people downvotes and then telling them, tsk tsk, you must be NICE with your downvotes... it's just an uphill battle.
I accept that Lemmy is very similar to Reddit, that is why I'm here, but that I do think we have an opportunity to make it even better, even though that's just my opinion.
For me, not trying to be an active part of making Lemmy as best as it can be for everyone would be like leaving the US for the UK because of Trump and then voting for the Tories.
I'm not really asking people to be "nice" with their downvotes, just to restrict them to comments that are off topic, against the community rules, hateful, misleading etc.