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On Lemmy, do you take note of the upvote/downvote ratio before clicking on a link, commenting, or voting yourself? (lemmy.world)

submitted 19 hours ago by fireweed@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

23 comments fedilink hide all child comments

(For instances that allow downvotes, obviously.)

I ask because if I see a post with more than a handful of downvotes assigned to what otherwise seems like decent content, I consider it a yellow flag, and I'll often go to the comments section to try and discover why the post is controversial.

Sometimes I'll find it's truly a matter of personal disagreement (such as on a hot-button topic like veganism), however I'll often discover the downvotes are there for a more objective reason, such as misleading or outdated info in the post. On many occasions this additional digging has led me to change what would have been an upvote from me to no vote or even a downvote. On the flip side, if I see a post that I like but that looks a bit fishy, if it has hardly any downvotes relative to the upvotes, I'll assume that it has passed Lemmy approval (a kind of Cunningham's Law I guess) and is therefore probably okay (e.g. I see a reference in a ScienceMemes or HistoryMemes post that seems too bonkers to be true).

So what about you all? Do you use the upvote: downvote ratio to guide how you interact with posts?

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[–] kindnesskills@literature.cafe 1 points 7 hours ago

I think voting disincentivices discussion, so I don't do it.

If I have an opinion on something I'll leave a comment instead. If I only want to vote but not take the time to comment, then it's clearly not worth interacting with at the moment and I scroll on. Might come back later if I feel like it and remember.

I sort by old comments and by new posts.