this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
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Privacy
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I wish votes were like how Reddit originally intended their voting system to be and still states it to be. Upvote if it's relevant and adds to the conversation, otherwise downvote. But people use it as an agree/disagree system.
I have a counter-argument for that: if votes don't represent agree/disagree, then your only way of signalling agreement is a reply. Votes != agreement leads to a bunch of one word "This" replies.
Eliminating voting doesn't eliminate the popularity contest; it just shifts the voting to a more noisy mechanism. You can't eliminate Popularity; it's a core function of society. I am not arguing that it's a good thing, only that it's going to take more than trying to squash the desire.
If someone states a valid argument that you disagree with, you believe it should be sent to the bottom of the comments? Sounds like the reinforcement of a hive mind, and therefore Lemmy will become just another echo chamber.
Should there be another mechanism to show both? Probably.
I thought that default ranking in Lemmy was based on activity, not votes. I could have misunderstood that, though.
I don't know, man. Denying the hive it's just delusional. The best honey is right in the middle; rogue drones just die early. Come, join the beautiful hexagonal map-dance and partake in the nectar.
Anyway, Lemmy's already an echo chamber; it's just enforced at the instance level.
Hexagon is the bestagon. Hahaha...I like your hive response.
I'm using the Sync app for Lemmy. It looks like comments are ordered by points/voting and there doesn't appear to be a way to sort by activity. Hot/new/top/old are the options.
I don't deny that there will always be an element of echo chamber but I'd prefer it to be as balanced as possible.
Maybe because I'm using an app instead of visiting an instance website and have my default view set to subscribed communities that I'm not seeing an instance echo chamber. Lemmy just appears to be more programming/Linux/self host/home lab than anything else at the moment.
I'm using Voyager, but that's a good point: clients are free to sort the data however they like.
To be accurate, I think what I heard was that the "front page" feed was populated by activity, not votes.
As per the echo chamber, consider hosts like hexabear, or even my own instance, which has a strong left-leaning flavor. I joined my instance because it's regionally local, not because of the politics, but I think it's run by - and, at least initially, populated by - 2A socialists: most members appeared to members of a socialist gun club in Wisconsin (or Illinois?). And Democrat members that try to post on Hexabear get the shit beaten out of them, metaphorically. Votes, IMO, are a much gentler tool for voicing approval or disapproval than vitriolic abuse in comments.