I use it the same way I did on Reddit; it's a decent gauge in how willing I am to engage with that person. If their history is littered with downvoted posts, then I'm less likely to engage because it's more likely they're being inflammatory on purpose.
Karma systems don't make places worse; the value placed upon them by the users does. It's not meant to be a counter for how liked you are, it's supposed to be representative of how you interact with the community; bad karma for bad interactions. But people use downvote as a disagree button, and people spam posts cause "big number make feel good". Good idea, difficult implementation given how humans work.
Karma usually doesn't work because it is used, as you said, a like button and not a quality button. Disagreeing with the majority is considered a violation.
I agree that’s what it supposed to be, but nobody really treats it like that. Downvotes are treated as a “dislike” button, despite the fact that it should be “this does not contribute meaningfully.“
Regardless of what we want, that’s just how people operate.
Reddit has a karma sum which is used to deny access from posting altogether. Here if you say something unpopular, you don't get the dopamine hit from upvotes, but you're also not silenced, unless the mod explicitly bans you.
Yeah, I found people always made a bigger deal out of that than it really was. I think folks just assume other people are having trouble even though they didn’t personally.
Some places had a thousand karma before being able to comment or post, that’s not an easy hill to climb, especially if you say the wrong thing somewhere and people take offense to it for no reason.
Well it’s for no real good reason I should say, why is it always just the fourth comment in a chain that gets downvoted, because of the tropes and circlejerks.
I was just trying to understand how you wanted me to respond to that comment, nothing nefarious or anything. You had a “why“ statement with no ? then a statement after, so I was just trying to make sure I was understanding you correctly and respond appropriately and such. Just your typical “lost in translation“ with text formats.
Ah, sorry that makes sense now, was asking a rhetorical question and answering it. There is of course a reason, but that reason may just be silly, so to a large portion of people it would be for seemingly no reason.
Covering all bases, and yes it would be confusing, that’s kinda the point, since there really isn’t a reason for some of the mass downvotes.
While I agree unpopular opinions often get shouted down, i think people often forget that sometimes what they consider an “unpopular opinion” is unpopular because it’s abhorrent or just wrong lol. Not every comment/idea is valid and deserves to be entertained.
Being anti-vax is unpopular in a lot of circles and I am perfectly happy with seeing those comments downvoted/ removed and the users banned.
TLDR:It’s truly astonishing how our understanding of ‘anti-vax’ has evolved from ‘afraid of giving kids autism’ to ‘thinks critically and makes personal health choices’.
Old-version for someone who didn't want to engage in conversation but still wanted to share their opinion on this social media outlet:
Quantum physics teaches us: Things can be in many places at once (Superposition), be two things at once (Wave-Particle Duality), and it's okay not to know everything perfectly (Uncertainty Principle). Life's not just black or white, it can be many things at once.
"Being anti-vax is unpopular in a lot of circles and I am perfectly happy with seeing those comments downvoted/ removed and the users banned."
On a personal note though... Oh absolutely! Let's put the 'broad brush' into overdrive. Why not have a script that auto-bans anyone who utters a word against broccoli too? After all, it's a superfood, right? And heaven forbid someone chooses to skip the flu shot because they haven't had the flu in a decade. Clearly, they're part of the grand 'Anti-Vax' conspiracy, right along with Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster! Let's not forget about those suspicious individuals who question the absolute safety of warp-speed vaccines – the audacity! It's truly astonishing how our understanding of 'anti-vax' has evolved from 'afraid of giving kids autism' to 'thinks critically and makes personal health choices'. But hey, we all need a hobby, and stereotyping people into neat little political boxes is as good as any, right?
I understand what you’re trying to do, but I am not interested in playing this game.
On a sidenote: I saw Oppenheimer recently as well, but let’s not shoehorn quantum physics into a discussion to make your point seem more elevated than it is.
Oooo, but you won't put it into words? Interesting. What exactly do you understand?
"I am not interested in playing this game."
Then why did you make a comment leading to this conversation? That's kind of the point of this protocol/platform... If you comment, people can comment back, even people with views that challenge yours. Gasp
"On a sidenote: I saw Oppenheimer recently as well, ..."
On a sidenote: I haven't seen it. I used my time in school to learn what they were teaching... This leads to an interesting question though, do you always pretend you know what people think and know without giving them a chance to express it themselves?
Even if the numbers don’t carry elsewhere in a meaningful way, seeing the high positive number next to your post still means that other people agreed with/liked what you said on that particular post/comment. And that alone can give a mild dopamine hit.
Less useful for bots trying to farm rep for nefarious reasons, more useful for real people who can feel the joy of a moment.
How are you not silenced exactly like you would be on Reddit? People downvotes posts and comments they don't agree with exactly like reddit, but here if the admins disagree they defederate entire instances over it. Hot page is completely useless compared to reddit, so only the most upvotes posts from the most popular subs are visible, and comments have the exact same issues reddit comments had. Nothing about this system is mechanically different from reddits system, baring how votes get totaled because of federation, (also the hot sort is uses).
I'm on connect for lemmy and also have a total count on my profile page.
Actually, isn't it up to the client? The dev can decide what to feature in the profile page. The fact is, every user has points for posts and comments. Maybe they are just adding the numbers up? Afaik Reddit had some other maths behind the karma count