• sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      You can also be “downvoted into oblivion” if you’re 100%, objectively correct, but your conclusion goes against the “hive mind.” I have had comments with a ton of sources and detailed analysis that got downvoted like crazy, and then the top comment is like “X group, amirite?”

      You’re 100% correct that reddit rewards snark far more than constructive discussion. That’s part of why I’m here, and why I’ll probably be perennially disappointed with social media.

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            I disagree that this is a “problem”. Votes are opinions, not objective fact.

            So what is the desired end result of a voting system, to promote popular opinions, or to promote interesting opinions? Because as implemented, voting-based SM tends to promote the former, and I think many people prefer the latter.

            So to me, it is a problem because it’s not meeting the goals that presumably most people have.

            With the downvotes, you have an immediate indication of a divisive position, ripe for a lively debate.

            Many platforms, like Reddit, hide comments that get too many downvotes. So many people just won’t see the interesting, controversial discussion, and I think that’s a problem.

            We should be sorting based on likeliness of being interesting, not popularity.

              • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                1 year ago

                It only really works in smaller communities imo, as the community gets larger, it just reflects what’s popular, and that’s a separate scale from good vs bad, especially once your community has self-selected itself into a common way of thinking.

                So the question is, how do we mitigate that self selection? How do we promote diversity? Voting doesn’t seem to cut it, and I don’t think moderation is the way either (we just need the “right people” argument). So yeah, I’d like to see a lot more experimentation with different ways of sorting comments and posts, because I think promoting diverse content is better long term.