Because to me, they seem like de facto "Agree and “Disagree” buttons, whether or not it was the intent.

  • aeronmelon@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    28 days ago

    If a story about someone getting hurt because X is posted, you don’t downvote it because you dislike what happened, you upvote it because it’s important information that should be shared.

    If someone makes a civilized and measured argument that you don’t agree with, you don’t downvote it because you disagree with their stance, you upvote it because it’s worthwhile discussion and all viewpoints deserve to be heard.

    If you’re unsure how to feel about something, you can just not vote on it and scroll on. Unfortunately, there are apps that hide things when you vote. Some people are trained to always vote as a way of clearing their feed.

    And other social media has spent decades training people that up means like and down means dislike. So the distinction that places like Lemmy or Reddit have from places like YouTube or Facebook is always going to be hard to convey to the many, many people who have been taught to think otherwise.

    • ohwhatfollyisman@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      28 days ago

      this fairly informative response has downvotes, ironically.

      downvoting something only because you disagree with its contents is a sign of immaturity. it screams, “i personally don’t like this viewpoint so i’ll do everything in my power to suppress it from everyone else.”.

      the mature response would be to leave the voting buttons alone and provide instead a measured response of the reasons for your disagreement.