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I have no use for a person's aggregate vote count, but when I go into a large thread on a big news item, I've found it very useful to sort by top. When there are hundreds of comments, being able to grab the ones that resonated with most people, or provided the most useful perspective, is a great feature.
It is important to remember that the most votes often goes to the earliest popular opinion just because it will be seen by more people the earlier it is posted. Still meets your criteria for resonating with the most people, but there can be some great insights or even the most useful perspective that was not brought to the top because the poster wasn't around when the thread was first posted.
Oh, sure, I get it. And if I'm going to spend the evening scrolling Lemmy, I'm probably going to scan the whole thread. But if my time is limited and I want to get the high points, sorting a big thread by top is better than any other way for me.
I agree, you're literally explaining the use case for a vote. It can be gamed sure but it cuts out a lot of the noise it also allows for other sorts like looking for unpopular or controversial comments.
Which is the point of this community
Which makes the OP so very meta
I can only discern popularity by everyone's comment contributions. And I like it that way.
So why not just go to the comments section of newsweek or some other such site?
I'm assuming newsweek doesn't have super niche nerd or shitposting columns. I could be wrong, though?
I suspect we use this platform differently. I've personally blocked nearly all political and domestic news communities on Lemmy.
Have you tried ifunny or imgur?
Gross, no.
Well at least you are a person of some taste and distinction. I hope you shitpost well and find many merryments and giggles anon.
It’d be neat if there was like, “time adjusted best”(this is probably close to what “Hot” on other sites). After an hour or two, posts are weighted based off of votes divided by time since posted.
You can still sort by top after hiding the vote counts.
Okay, but how does that help anything?
when I go into a large thread on a big news item, I’ve found it very useful to sort by top.
Quote by you. So you can still see the top rated comments on top, you just don't see the numbers behind the sorting.