I think I’ve settled on the latter. Disagreement is maybe best communicated by the absence of an upvote? And downvotes work best when they signal something that is just off base, and while not reportable, is not appreciated at a broad cultural level.
But as an intelligent person, you can also discriminate between something that doesn’t convince you personally, and something that is completely without value or irrelevant.
When you refrain from downvoting in the former instance, you contribute to a more healthy discussion. Not every person that I disagree with is a bad person; similarly, not every comment that I disagree with is a bad comment.
Yes, it really bugs me when I get downvotes but not one single comment articulating what they are not liking or what they disagree with. I could not care less about the score, I’m here for discussion and also debate. I often find when I ask “why the downvotes” it’s because people misinterpreted what I wrote (my fault, I need to be clear) or I used info they didn’t have (something I know because of an area of interest that I think it’s common knowledge in that group). Both can “fixed” by discussion.
Same man. But you hit the nail on the head, regardless of how you upvote or downvote, its usually even better to just make a comment and explain your thoughts, respectfully of course.
I just upvoted that was then realized I should indicate my agreement with a comment. :)
I agree with the above convo you’ve been having, but your comment made me think, so I’ll play a little devils advocate here: do we want 1000 “I agree.” comments following each other comment? Not really. There needs to be a simple way to say “I like this but don’t have anything to add”. An upvote accomplishes this.
As for downvotes, yes they need to be more than “I disagree”. Something akin to “I don’t think this contributes”. I liked someone’s suggestion that we need more than the binary up and down. Maybe a “troll” vote too.
Yes, I actually agree, I was just adding that was a little joke which maybe wasn’t the best choice. :)
I caught the joke :) I mentioned playing devils advocate cus I don’t want to actually attack you or anything, I just saw an interesting opposing viewpoint that I hadn’t heard expressed yet. I think your closer to the best solution in general tho
You’re taking things way to personally on the internet if you worry about down votes. It’s not people’s job to explain everything to you. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t, learn to move on from downvotes.
Would you like to make an example of a good comment that you disagree with? Because in my world comments that I disagree with are bad comments. If they were good comments I would agree with them. I am not some teacher grading essays and giving points for good structure.
That’s exactly my point. You are not the ultimate judge of what is good and what is bad. I’m not telling you to upvote things you disagree with, I’m simply telling you to not downvote unless it’s clearly not relevant.
All of your comments on this thread are good comments that I disagree with. Sometimes, disagreement leads to growth.