Why YSK? Comments you reply positively to, should definitely get your upvote. Comments you disagree with should be at your discretion. Trolls deserve downvotes (seriously, they live for those). Disagreeing with someone in the midst of a good discussion doesn’t necessarily warrant one, and might deserve an upvote. Even if you don’t reply, but you agree with the comment, give it your vote.
Also, this has nothing to do with propping up folks’ egos. Comments with more upvotes will likely be seen first the longer the post is up. Alternatively, downvoted posts are less likely to be seen unless users are looking for them.
Of course, this can lead to folks accusing communities of having leftist/right-wing bias, but I think overall it improves the usage of the site. Personally, the thing I liked most about Reddit was the conversations in the comments. Usually the ones with the most upvotes were more worth the read & engagement.
That is a common courtesy – at the same “line of thought” of “don’t touch fire, or else it will hurt you.”
I disagree. Voting is low-effort participation. Leaving a comment is much higher effort. I prefer the latter.
I agree that voting is low effort participation is it is participation. The software is kind of designed to work this way. More favored posts/discussions are promoted. If nobody “promotes” anything, the wheat stays mixed in with the chaff.
But it’s a “why not both” situation. If you don’t vote, the comment won’t get featured as highly. That might not matter much for a thread with 5 comments, but when there’s 200 comments, only some of them are gonna be seen and voting defines which (not replies – after all, plenty of bad comments get tons of replies).
How are posts moved up the main page or top or hot? Is it based off upvotes, or boosts? I don’t even know the difference.
What is a boost?
KBin and Mastodon thing. In Mastodon it reposts the post to your own followers. What it does on Kbin I dont know.
aha cheers, that explains why I am not seeing it (I’m in Lemmy)
I agree with the sentiment. And, tbf, half the top voted reddit comments were hardly worthwhile. Quirky one liners, where the thoughtful comments, or thoughtful posts even, only got a handful of votes and a “I’m not reading all that”
While your assessment of the situation on Reddit matches my experience, the fact that the official rule was to upvote comments that improve the discussion and downvote the ones that hinder it made it easier to be exposed to people with opposite opinions, relatively to other social networks.
Fair point. Have an upvote! ;-)
It’s certainly not a perfect system, and as has been pointed out by other comments I may be completely wrong about what up-/down-votes even do. Then again, if they don’t do anything, why have them at all?
I kind of agree. If you thought the post was important enough to comment on, you should usually upvote.
Looking at it the other way, when I post something, I tend to feverishly upvote any comments it gets, even negative ones, because I want to reward engagement.
If you want your community to stay healthy, then voting on posts simply means one thing: This post is a good fit for this community.
You don’t have to like it or agree with it, that’s not the point. This is to improve the service for your fellow community members, as they will then become more likely to see posts that fit, and less likely to see ones that do not. They can then decide for themselves if they like or do not like the actual contents.
Voting on comments is another story, and is much more up to user discretion and the community culture. Vote however you like on comments.
Also, be aware, downvoting a post into oblivion does not make less people see it, it makes more people see it. We all love checking the downvote bombed posts from time to time, sometimes they can get downright hilarious, in a sad sort of way.
As a former lurker on Reddit, I’m forcing myself to give votes to everything I read here, comments or posts. It is getting easier and easier once I make it a habit. I’m also trying to comment a lot (like this one), even though I never did before. Commenting more actually is quite enjoyable as I finally feel like I’m more part of the discussions instead of an observer.
Agree!
(Upvoted)
I disagree. I use my votes to show that something is interesting (this topic - despite my disagreement - is an interesting one).
I upvote content I wish other people to see. I download content I wish to be seen less by others.
Whether I comment or not is not relevant… though if I don’t like something, I prefer not to give it the traffic.
YSK: this community is mainly for facts or guides. What you’ve posted is an opinion.
I don’t agree with you, since the OP post does state the fact that more upvoted content will be more visible. This is a fact
Even though I don’t agree with you, I’ve upvoted you since I want to promote the discussion.
But that’s not the main point you’re making. “YSK: upvoting content makes it more visible” wouldn’t be much of a post would it?
You’re trying by to dictate what people “should” or “shouldn’t” promote. That part isn’t objective, it’s conveying your own ideas. Which doesn’t fit the YSK community.
In fairness I didn’t make that point, someone else did.
I still agree with the OP though.
It’s completely irrelevant who made the point. If you can “agree” or “disagree” with the content, by principle it does not belong in YSK.
Take a look at some of the posts in this community. Does it seem like you could agree or disagree with most of them? No, because the typical YSK post is just a plain piece of information, which is either true or false (hopefully true).
Is this not a guide on how best to use sites like lemmy, kbin, reddit, and the like? The software is designed to promote content that’s favored by the users. If the users don’t do their part, it limits the functionality of the software.
