this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
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I've posted some controversial stuff, and I understand why I would be getting down voted for that. But I see some of my posts and comments are in the negatives for seemingly no reason at all? I don't really care about the karma because I can't see it anyway, but I'm worried that comments and posts here are gonna get downvoted and dismissed without further consideration solely because of the negative score, like what would happen on reddit. I suspect someone, a troll, a bot, or a misclick downvoted my comment or post and people just followed along downvoting in turn. It's either that, or I genuinely said something bad but I can't figure for the life of me that it is indeed bad. My prime example is my support post for commenting under certain posts, why did that get the downvotes? And I see this kind of thing sometimes on other people's comments as well, and I'm baffled, is it me who can't understand why something is bad, or hive mind came here too?

EDIT: it seems i wasn't clear enough. a) I'm not worried about getting the actual downvotes. I'm worried about downvotes stopping to be a tool to gauge content. b) I'm not worried about controversial opinions' downvotes, I already said I'm not surprised I got downvoted there. I was talking about totally mundane posts, like that one support post. c) I'm not talking about people simply disagreeing, I'm talking about people immediately disregarding a post because of the downvote count. it's not correct to say this doesn't happen, it totally does and... how am I supposed to prove that? all it takes on reddit is see a comment on 0 for no reason and see it quickly drop to -5

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[–] Moghul 114 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Maybe it's on a different account but at least on this account I don't see any posts on your profile that are in the negative.

I find it interesting how posts like these only pop up asking about downvotes, never upvotes. Does this "hivemind" only do things you don't like? Is it in the room with us right now?

People have no obligation to interact with anything in any way. There are people who downvote just to make the post go away in some apps. Stop worrying yourself with what gets points. If it's that big of an issue, sign up with beehaw, afaik they don't do downvotes at all.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Huh, I looked and also didn't see many posts in the negative. Then I clicked through to the original instance, and the same posts have completely different scores. Like one post was (+22/-10) on Kbin, and -52 on Lemmy.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Let's all make a test, what does this post look like from your instances:

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Coming up as 35 / 0 for me. Strange that none of the downvotes are coming into kbin

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I'm on kbin too and I can't see the downvotes OP is talking about either.

I think we're way more sparing of downvotes at kbin because we can all see exactly who upvoted or downvoted what.

But that doesn't explain why we can't even see the Lemmys downvotes.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

+35/-0 for me.

[–] Moghul 4 points 1 year ago

Just shows 33 points for me, both on pc and on the sync app

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Strange, when I look at OPs history, I see quite a few in the negative. Maybe it's because I'm from a different instance?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Yeah same. I see a mix of positive and negative.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I find it interesting how posts like these only pop up asking about downvotes, never upvotes

You don't hear complaints about it as much but it absolutely does happen. I haven't really seen it here, yet, but I cannot count the number of times on reddit I've seen a highly upvoted comment confidently spouting incorrect information, with replies correcting the information at BEST gaining no traction, but more likely they get downvoted hard for going against the upvoted comment.

[–] Moghul 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That's fair enough, but even in that case I wouldn't call it a "hivemind". I can only speak from my own perspective (don't have stats to support this) but I don't think people click an arrow just because X amount of people have done the same. At least I don't. What it seems like to me is, right or wrong, people will generally behave in ways that reflect their knowledge and level of interest in the subject.

That's not a hivemind or herd behavior or whatever else people like to call it. The masses aren't an NPC that does stuff on auto pilot.

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[–] [email protected] 64 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Op’s question is not a question at all. It’s a scare mongering tactic that invents a hivemind boogeyman, claims victimhood, and seeks weaker minds to join his false crusade. At best, he’s looking for attention.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You said some controversial stuff and are upset that you got downvoted? Grow up, not everyone has to like what you say and if you're so needy for validation say something you know won't get pushback.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

One of the things I found annoying on reddit was when people would cry about getting downvote instead of making a comment without worrying about whether they got downvoted or not.

Making edits crying about getting downvoted or first saying I'll probably be downvoted for this but... I really disliked those.

But, I will agree that it is preferable to leave a message explaining why someone disagrees rather than just downvoting. Whining about it is just as annoying though. If my instance let me downvote I'd downvote those comments even if I agreed.

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[–] alokir 25 points 1 year ago (14 children)

I read through some of your comments with lots of downvotes, I have a theory why you were heavily downvoted.

First, people use the dowvote button as a way to express that they disagree, not that they think the content is low quality or unfitting. I don't see how we can change this other than not having a downvote button at all, this seems to be like an outcome of the up/downvote system.

Also, you seem to be a person of principles. I know the reactions too well because I also think similarly. For example, I think judging someone by the color of their skin or ethnicity is wrong, and it seems like you do so as well.

You have a heavily downvoted comment under a post where some Russians faced discrimination and it wasn't clear if it was happening because they were Russians or there were some other reasons as well. You noted this, and got downvoted because people think racism is ok now because Russia (as a country) is an aggressor in a war.

People are too quick to put you in a box if you don't 100% follow their narratives and say even one thing that remind them of others who genuinely belong in that box.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The hive mind is whatever the community upvotes. It’s inherent and was always on Lemmy as well as any other place that allows upvotes and/or downvotes.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I haven't run across any content that had down votes that I couldn't understand a reason for. Either whatever was being said was untenable, controversial, negative, or hostile.

Humans have emotions, and certain interactions with people will get a certain emotional response. People are utilizing the downvote to express this. So being blunt, controversial, negative, inciting an argument is going to get these kind of responses. It's just human nature.

Try not to think of upvotes and downvotes as anything meaningful beyond hey did I make somebody smile by saying this or frown by saying this. And people frown at things all the time

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Downvote bots are here as well, though. Recently I was helping someone see whether they are downvoted by bots.

Here's the post I'm talking about: https://a.lemmings.world/lemmings.world/post/214059

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

A) There is no hive mind. That's just you perceiving a bunch of people who happen to hold a similar opinion as a monolith, and that's an illusion. You have no data whatsoever to support the idea that they're thinking in concert or even have the same reasons for their reactions.

  1. Don't take it so personally. They don't know you, and they're not attacking you by downvoting you. They're simply expressing "I want to see less of this."

d) Instead of having a kneejerk reaction when you get this kind of response and immediately being defensive, step back and use it as a reflective moment. Maybe you misjudged the room, misinterpreted the potential impact of what you posted, or are simply on a different track from those who downvoted. What can you learn from it? Do you need to change your own approach, or do you need to reevaluate your audience?

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[–] RedditWanderer 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Who do you think is coming over from reddit. aliens? Cows? It's humans bro, you're going to have the same problems as long as it revolves around people and their relationship.

Somehow lemmy is supposed to represent something different while being made up of the same people? This is kind of a silly point to be questioning

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

Seen plenty of people calling for the de-federation ban-hammer whenever they find comment they like. There's fine line between having an open space and an echo chamber and if it were up to these people we'd federate with no one

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I’ve only skimmed your comments, but I think a factor is also that a lot of them are really hard to read.

Examples I see are weird sentence structure, the lack of paragraphs for longer messages, the lack of capitalisation, and rather odd/hyperbolic use of words (writing in the same way you’d speak?). This “style” just gets interpreted as “noise” when I’m reading it, which will get downvoted as it doesn’t contribute.

English isn’t my first language either (it’s not even my second or third!) so I understand it’s very hard to get these things right. But without sufficient clarity you will get downvotes, as it just comes off as noise.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Sometimes you say things that go down well, sometimes not. If you only ever experience approval in your life, you are doing something wrong.

[–] mysoulishome 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

I went through some of your comments to see. The most recent ones where you said that the who categorized meet as bad as plutonium is not exactly right… it put it in the same category as plutonium, but didn’t say it was “as bad” when it comes to causing cancer. Some of your comments are awkwardly phrased and wordy with odd punctuation, sometimes people just get weird about that sort of thing. Obviously your most downvoted comment in recent is about Ukraine and any time you speak a strong opinion on Ukraine and Russia and what not who knows…could be a whole bunch of people from other places coming in to down vote because of political ideology. There are a lot of people on Lemmy with pro-Russia leanings.

Some of your comments that are downvoted to negative 2 or 3 do seem to be for no reason that I can see. 🤷🏻‍♂️

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Sometimes, hypothetically, you post cringe. It's ok, I post cringe sometimes too

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I agree that the downvotes on your posts in the Jerboa community are rather strange. My theory is that people who downvote your more controversial stuff subsequently go through your whole profile and just downvote everything regardless of content.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not sure, but I guess there is no real way to address this until we have public downvotes as on Kbin.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Yes because this isn't a reddit phenomenon but a human psychology phenomenon

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My experience on Lemmy has been greatly improved by turning off downvotes. It's not worth the mental energy.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I suppose somebody, who didn't like what you posted at one point, went through the trouble of down voting all your comments/posts regardless if their content.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Welcome to the internet! We have bots and people who act like bots.

In all seriousness though, I think that this is just a flaw in the voting system and human behaviour. People like to go with the general concensus instead of thinking for themselves. It feels like people genuinely have difficulty in thinking about things and act as automatons a lot of the time. I also have a suspicion that bots are involved but I don't have any evidence though it does seem to be a theory that has circulated on the internet for some time.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

It would help if everyone tried to interpret other people's comments in the best possible way, rather than in the worst possible way. It leads to much more interesting discussions.

Unfortunately, that is very unlikely to happen.

[–] Aphroditusss 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

It's rare to feel like downvoting every post on a user's profile. But when it happens, the person is always a piece of shit. I saw some people saying that you are a fascist. If true, that's the reason you're getting the downvotes, it's because you're a piece of shit.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

It's changed in a matter of a week or so. I can't even believe the drop in quality contribution. It's actually made me upset. I was so excited, with such sound discourse. But I'm just seeing:

This. What he said. This is the way.

Etc.

Very. Very. Disappointed.

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