![When u make a silly joke on this platform [Smooth Dunk]](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/318abf30-dc00-4b23-a4a4-8cf6a78d1477.png){kind=link}
Smooth Dunk | Bluesky
Transcript
5 panel comic
Panel 1: Pink guy saying: I just made a silly joke!
Panel 2: Pink guy turns to see a door swing open, revealing a Weird Greenish Guy in the doorway
Panels 3-5: Weird greenish guy begins to walk towards Pink Guy in a very creepy manner. He says: I’m Gonna take it SERIOUSLY
By panel 5 Weird Guy has Pink Guy in a death grip. He’s going to throttle him for having the audacity to tell a silly joke on social media
I feel like comment downvotes shouldn’t affect the comment’s score, or really that the downvote should appear to the person voting like it affects the score, but that effect only appears on their client. Then, moderators would use downvotes as a hint that the comment might need to be removed, after checking it themselves.
Down votes to show a comment is bad is a benefit 99% of the time and should be visible for everyone.
It lets you know that other people also gave feedback without multiple people needing to dogpile pointing out the same problems multiple times to show consensus.
The problem is that downvotes don’t show that a comment is “bad.” They just show that people downvoted it.
There are all sorts of reasons people downvote good comments. Maybe they’re trolling. Maybe they’re memeing. Maybe they simply don’t like it personally because it shows they’re bad. Maybe they want to change the way all the comments are sorted. Maybe they don’t like the commenter.
People upvote things because they are good or they are virtue signalling or they are memeing or they like it personally or they want to change the way comments are sorted or they like the commenter.
Literally the same reasons with different outcomes. The specific reason for down voting is lost in the noise just like upvotes.
If it’s the same reasons, then they can accomplish the same goals with upvotes.
No they can’t indicate a negative preference through upvotes.
My suggestion was that they continue using downvotes for that, but it would only be seen by moderators. And you can show your negative preferences by upvoting the other comments, and it would still be visible to everyone.
Why would I upvote comments that don’t deserve it just to show one comment has slightly less upvotes? How would I differentiate between one I thought deserved an upvote more than the rest when I’m trying to ‘downvote’ another comment by up voting everything else?
Upvote good, don’t vote if neutral, and downvote if bad makes perfect sense. Your suggestion and alternate approach to voting makes zero sense.
People do it all the time. They downvote one person and upvote everyone else because it doubles the effect of their votes. It’s even already happened in this very comment chain.
I don’t think hyperbole helps here.