The ability to up- and downvote posts and comments is useful but the score should not be displayed to the users and you shouldn’t be able to enable it even if you wanted to. This means both, posts made by you as well as by others.
Nobody wants to see their messages get downvoted. This is bad for our mental health as individuals but especially as a group. It’s like walking up to a person on the street, saying “I don’t like you” and then moving on. You’re free to not like (downvote) someone but they don’t need to hear it. If you really want them to know then write a message and explain yourself.
Upvotes on the other hand skews the reality and encourages groupthink. People say what is popular even if they don’t fully buy it themselves and conversely refrain from saying things they truly believe because they then dont get the upvotes and get downvoted instead.
Seeing the scores also primes the reader. When something is heavily upvoted for example you assume it to be true/good instead of using your own judgement to decide.
A downvote doesn’t mean they don’t like you, the downvoter doesn’t even know you.
A downvote means they disagree with the content, they find it harmful, or it just isn’t relavent to the topic.
If you really hate downvotes there is Beehaw.
It’s hilarious that you’re getting downvoted for this lol
Did people downvote you because they disagreed, found it harmful, or found it irrelevant? If so they just proved your point…I guess unless they know you
Yeah I just have to laugh about downvotes. Was the same way on Reddit, sometimes there is no obvious reason. Maybe they are downvoting the mention of Beehaw.
A lot of lemmy users like to pretend that it’s totally different than reddit. But aside from federation, it’s the same shit with the same people acting the same way…
My argument equally applies to upvotes.
This isn’t about me, it’s about our society as a whole. I can disable post scores for me but that doesn’t solve the underlying issue.
HASHTAG WE LIVE IN A SOCIETY HASHTAG JOKER IRL HASHTAG FIGHTCLUB