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/kbin meta @kbin.social billothekid2 @kbin.social

I'm starting to see some serious downsides to being able to see who downvotes you.

A few days ago I downvoted someone's comment, and the next day I happened to notice every single comment I've ever made had at least one downvote. All from the person I dared to downvote the ONE time. I straight up asked why they did it, and they seem to think I'm an "obvious" troll account that "apparently just exist to downvote other people". I assure you I'm no troll account, and ironically don't really downvote all that often.
I know the topic of public downvotes has been discussed before, but I never used to care either way. Now I'm kinda leaning in the "I don't like it" side. Honestly, I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a little offended, maybe even attacked. Also, there goes all my imaginary internet points. Lol
Has anyone else had something like this happen to them, or am I just unlucky?

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  • stop caring about votes like they mean anything.

    • I don't. That's why I called them imaginary internet points. Lol. My point was about the fact that you can see who downvotes you.

      • @billothekid2 this exchange raises another point. You and @snooggums downvoting each other here seem to be engaging in "downvote-to-disagree" with each other.

        I don't see nearly as much of this on kbin as I do on, say, lemmy.world and I'm sure it's because of our more transparent voting system.

        I'm personally not a fan because I think it's vaguely hostile and discourages open discussion.

        • FWIW, I usually downvote if the person is a dick. Often I also disagree with them, but not always. If you are dragging the conversation down (in some way other than having an unpopular opinion) you get a downvote.

        • Same, generally speaking when I'm writing a comment in order to disagree with someone I want that other person's comment to be more visible to other readers. That way they can read it, see my response, and realize how wrong the original comment was and how right I am. :) I save my downvotes for comments that are so wrong they're not worth a response.

          I'll even sometimes downvote a comment, ponder for a moment, and then remove my downvote and write a response instead.

          • The way I see it, downvotes = "I wish this comment didn't exist" and doing it to punish someone for having a discussion with us is weird, since social media is all about discussions, and exchanging disagreeing points of view is interesting.

        • I am downvoting because complaining about downvotes while saying they don't matter is hypocritical and not a discussion made in good faith. Just wanted to see if they voted in response, showing their hypocrisy.

          • You see? That's literally not what I said. I seem to have struck a nerve with you here and I'm not sure why. But go ahead. Give me my downvote that I apparently care so much about.

            • canis_majoris said to stop caring and you replied with

              I don't. That's why I called them imaginary internet points. Lol. My point was about the fact that you can see who downvotes you.

              Yet, you noticed someone downvoting a bunch of your posts and took the time to contact them and ask for reason. Then you didn't like their response and made this post. Then when I downvoted it you downvoted my post. The only reason for you to do any of this is because you care about being downvoted. You react to it, yet say you don't care. That is what you said and did, and what I am responding to.

              I hate being accused of lying, so I responded to you implying that I'm lying by claiming something other than what you said.

          • is difference between getting downvoted and effect of getting downvoted

        • Fair enough. I tend to think downvotes are warranted when it's not adding anything to the conversation and/or are somewhat hostile. Not that it's worth anything at this point, but the downvote was because I literally just explained myself on the very post they were responding to. People are just putting words in my mouth at this point just because they want to disagree, and at some point it's easier to downvote that to repeat myself.

    • I don't think it's as simple as that. Downvotes do have some kind of meaning — when you give a downvote, you're doing it for some reason that you want to convey — and people are going to interpret downvotes accordingly. If downvotes didn't mean anything, then there'd be no point to them existing at all. What exactly a downvote means depends on the person giving it, but it's ideally (imo) used to express that a post is spam, hateful, or otherwise a bad contribution to the discussion. Obviously, people shouldn't take downvotes personally, but a post being downvoted does and should mean something.

      Thus, what OP mentions in his post is a legitimate concern. Public votes allow people to more easily downvote spam someone who downvoted them, which is unequivocally a bad thing that we'd prefer not to have. However, whether we should make votes private is a matter of whether the downsides outweigh the upsides, and they don't.

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