Today has been especially bad, and was inspired sadly by about 6 straight posts of only negativity here.
I want to say that being negative towards something is not a bad thing, it’s very valid to critique things. However, a community becomes toxic when the majority of it’s content is negative.
Gaming is an obvious one. It’s very obvious all around the internet that gaming communities are negative generally, and Lemmy certainly takes the cake. In the case of GTA 6 coming out this month we can (and have) had multiple stories about Rockstar’s unethical practices, the pricing, ownership, and to be clear I agree with all of it. However, there is also valid positive things that people want to discuss but are immediately downvoted to hell, or have comments brigaded on with responses like “Don’t you know about X, Y, or Z??”
I’ve been in comment threads where people have told me that they are afraid to post here because of the responses they might get. Now this is absolutely true everywhere, and we will often respond “You just have to tune them out” but the scales are shifting to the majority of responses are negative.
New users will not simply block/tune out the majority of commenters. New users will see that a community is toxic and turn around and go back to where they felt it was better.
This is the root of my frustration - that Lemmy is no longer a geeky place where people can talk about Star Trek and Linux - but that it’s becoming a toxic place where if you aren’t talking about why Star Trek and Linux are the only good things on the planet that it should be called out over and over.
Worse is that the scales a tipping to simply being “If it is popular, it is not good” which is a huge red flag for toxic community. To be clear it does not mean that if something is popular that it must be good, but instead we are falling for the same trap that is on corporate social media.
Anger and toxicity are fun, they are dopamine hits. So when there’s a huge post about <<popular thing>> and everyone dogpiles, everyone has that dopamine hit and it spreads, and it makes people want to dogpile more. Unfortunately I think this has left individual posts, and this is now driving a large part of our comment sections, that people feel included when they are all dogpiling on a popular thing. It’s addictive.
It’s incessant and exhausting being here some days.
Some examples to think on:
- Harry Potter fans (who have already said they will not buy anything from Rowling again and are aware) who still want to enjoy the books/movies they already own, but are shouted down and downvoted
- Sports fans posting about football, to have jokes about “sportsball” made to them.
- (Is that really any different from nerds being made fun of by jocks in highschool, only this is in reverse and worse yet, we’re supposedly more mature now?)
- Freaking pumpkin spice. The world is on fire and people get a tiny bit of joy out of cinnamon and allspice, can we let them just enjoy that?!
I think that sums it all up, I wish people could just enjoy things here without having the majority of comments be about why they shouldn’t enjoy it. I think this attitude has already lost of a good chunk of users who could be adding to the fediverse, instead now back on corporate social media.
It’s anecdotal but I’ve shown the fediverse to 3 other people who are trekkie nerds like me. They gave up in less than a week not because the fediverse was complicated, but because they felt like they weren’t wanted here.
Be the positive change, be encouraging. Don’t belittle for someone for liking a popular thing if you like something more obscure, instead post about obscure thing and why you like it and share it! Inform users of things like Rowlings insane shit-headery, but don’t demean them for still enjoying the books. If you don’t like sports that’s cool, but let them cheer on their team.
Thanks for listening. I’m going to have a pumpkin spice latte now.
I figured you would ‘should’ upvote relevant posts that drive engagement. A post on the investing community about “New AI Company Signs Big Deal With Other Company” is relevant content to the community and important news but I’ll find it down voted to hell, just lucky enough to have loaded the post at like -1. I think it’s being down voted because people don’t like the outcome or subject matter, but it’s just stuffing the news down for others.
That doesn’t matter to this conversation. The point the guy made was “Upvotes and downvotes used to mean something! Now it’s just for disagreements!”
Which is objectively false. Those buttons have ALWAYS been there for agreement/disagreement. Nothing more, nothing less.
No. That’s not even remotely what I said. You’re misrepresenting my argument and strawmanning it to hell and back. And if that’s genuinely the conclusion you arrived at after reading what I wrote, then you’re part of the problem. In fact, you’re exactly the kind of person contributing to the dysfunction of the voting system you’re supposedly participating in.
What you like and dislike is entirely irrelevant. Your personal, anecdotal opinion about whether you agree with something has absolutely no bearing on whether the information being presented is accurate, relevant, or appropriate for the sub. Frankly, nobody cares. Keep it to yourself. If you can’t separate your personal preferences from the purpose of the voting system, then don’t vote. You’re doing more harm than good.
I was very explicit about my argument: people are abusing the voting system by voting in bad faith, and that is fundamentally contrary to what the system is intended to accomplish. If you’re downvoting something simply because you don’t like the context, the opinion, or the way information is presented, despite that information being factually accurate and relevant to the discussion, then you’re contributing directly to the problem.
That’s the entire point. The voting system isn’t supposed to be a popularity contest or a mechanism for punishing opinions you don’t personally agree with. It’s supposed to help distinguish valuable, relevant contributions from those that aren’t.
So stop treating the downvote button like a personal dislike button. You’re undermining the very system you’re participating in.
You’re just wrong. No matter how many words you type- the voting button was NEVER meant for what you have described. It has ALWAYS been a personal “Like/Dislike” button. Find me ANYWHERE in the Lemmy rules that says otherwise. Oh, you can’t? Weird.
I don’t need to. I’m not wrong. Treating the voting system on platforms like Lemmy as your personal like/dislike buttons is precisely what degrades the quality of the platform. It exemplifies the toxic behavior and attitudes prevalent here and, frankly, reinforces the very point OP was making.
I don’t need Lemmy’s rules or documentation to dictate what I believe the spirit and intended purpose of a voting system should be.
Once again, your personal feelings about how much you like or dislike something are completely irrelevant and should not be the determining factor in how you vote.
You can say whatever you want and cry about it until the cows come home, but that doesn’t make you right.
See? This is exactly why your interpretation is so fundamentally flawed. I can take the exact same rhetoric you’re using, turn it around on you, and it would be just as valid and equally useless to the discussion.
The difference is that I’m actually addressing the substance and context of your claims and comments, allowing the discussion to continue in a meaningful direction rather than devolving into an exchange of personal opinions and emotional reactions.
But by all means, continue validating your personal, irrational, and entirely subjective interpretation of Lemmy’s technical documentation while ignoring the actual point being made.
I mean, you objectively are wrong.
Got it- so you just don’t understand social media, and because it doesn’t work the way YOU believe it should, everyone else is wrong.
they are conflating the ideals of ‘redditquette’ with reality.
No. Just you. I agree with what OP was saying.
It is obvious that all you need is anything that validates your personal interpretation of the ideals established by this platform.
Lemmy intentionally kept the description of its voting system vague and concise because it didn’t want to replicate Reddit’s karma system.
What I’m saying is that treating the voting system here as your personal like/dislike apparatus is voting in bad faith and goes against the spirit of the system.
If you’re perfectly comfortable approaching the voting system that way, that’s your prerogative. However, understand that you’re not doing yourself or the community any favors. You’re contributing to the very problem OP is describing by using a community engagement tool as a vehicle for personal approval or disapproval rather than engaging with the actual content of a discussion.
Also I’m not wrong… Objectively.
I am using the voting buttons as intended. For some reason that triggers you. Idk why you’re so convinced you’re right, but you have yet to give anything other than your opinion to justify it. Give a source of some kind to prove it, and others might agree. I know the source “I made it the fuck up,” is really hard to source properly, but do try.
Edit- Yes, you objectively are wrong.
I’m not entirely sure why you’re appealing to authority to make your point. Just because you’re following the guidelines established by Lemmy regarding how people should vote doesn’t make you right. It doesn’t even mean the guidelines themselves are correct. In fact, they’re called guidelines for a reason. They’re not hard rules.
I don’t need to provide you with a citation to justify my position. I’ve laid out my argument, point by point. What I don’t understand is why you continue to refuse to actually address it.
You’re not objectively correct simply because you adhere to what you believe is the letter of the rule, particularly when there isn’t even an actual rule to begin with.
Let me spell this out for you one more time: What you personally like or dislike is irrelevant. The spirit of the voting system is to evaluate whether the content and context of a post are appropriate for the community, not whether you personally agree with or enjoy what’s being said.
Do you understand the distinction between the letter and the spirit of something?
Furthermore, I’ve explained how voting based on emotional reactions and subjective personal experiences contributes to making this platform more toxic and exacerbates the bandwagon effect that is already so prevalent here.
And that’s precisely what’s happening right now. People are voting on our conversation in exactly the same way you are. They’re not agreeing with me because you’ve objectively demonstrated that you’re correct. They’re agreeing with you because they’re emotionally invested in your position and reacting accordingly. That doesn’t make your argument any more valid, nor does it make mine any less valid. If anything, it reinforces the very point I’ve been making throughout this entire exchange.
Literally, you are the problem.