Specifically applies to places like Lemmy and Reddit. But also other social media like Facebook with thumbs up and down reactions. I’m mostly talking about Lemmy here though.
There’s no benefit to having this system on Lemmy. It results in people who disagree with your content leaving a drive-by dookie on your doorstep. If you disagree with someone, you should actually have to leave a comment as to why, instead of just downvoting. If downvotes are removed, things would still be sorted by popularity correctly. The only thing we would lose is the “controversial” sort function, and could just be replaced with a “most comments” or “least upvotes”.
People are going to say, just ignore them they don’t mean anything. But they do mean something. If you see -13 on a thoughtful post you worked hard on, it makes you feel bad. That’s just the human condition.
Yes I know I can turn votes off in settings here, but many people only respond with an upvote to show they read and acknowledge your message, so you’re missing out on a whole stream of communication if you disable it.
Anyway, it doesn’t keep me up at night, but I think it’s lame when people just downvote and leave. It turns comments into this weird popularity contest where you feel unwelcome, especially on a discussion-heavy place like here.
Edit: here’s an interesting discussion a while ago that had some ideas: https://lemm.ee/post/30635232
You don’t have to be uncaring to defend your own mental health.
You touched on a point, that downvoting someone is a quick, dirty, and cheap way to disagree with something without having to actually engage with it. Okay, so consider the value of that interaction: not much.
To put it another way, say you and I meet for the first time, and I say your mother is a whore. You might get offended for a variety of reasons, but what I’m telling you is that I do not know your mother, so you can place a value of zero on that opinion and let it pass right by you. In fact, while I’ve said one thing that was quite offensive, I’ve told you something else entirely. I’ve told you that I’m a toxic person who doesn’t care about your feelings (and probably don’t respect my own mother, or women in general). Use that information and handle me accordingly, which is to say, ignore the comment (as though it never existed, because it shouldn’t have) and completely disregard me as my opinions are beneath you. That doesn’t make you uncaring, it makes you emotionally mature and intelligent, and more civilised.
(Please know that I would not call your mother a whore, and that I do not disrespect women. But people are put off when you use them as an example (e.g. “say you did X, Y, and Z”), it puts them on defence immediately, so I used myself instead. It’s all a bit of emotional manipulation, but once you’ve seen how the game is played, you can use it to protect yours.)
The same people who use Reddit and 4chan also use Lemmy. The people you meet online will mostly be irrelevant. Some will be hostile. Some will be scammers. A few people might be worth knowing, but you’ll have to sort through the rest to find the best. And if you can’t keep your emotions in check, you’ll ward off the best as well. And you don’t want that.
I still give advice and try to help others. I just don’t care when people are rude. That’s their problem, not mine. I gain nothing from making it mine.
Others can explain this better than I can. I am but a student. I’m happy to share what I know, but I don’t know everything.