On Reddit, you had the "fake internet points". On Lemmy the points are totally real, but still worthless.
They might also be meaningless internet points. Who knows.
They're really not meaningless though. For one thing, they allow moderators and admins to more easily detect trolls and bad faith actors. And on platforms or with add-ons that allow better tracking of vote history, it allows the user to more efficiently moderate their own experience, should they so choose.
Also, I think you've got to be kind of an asshole to not recognise that a little bit of validation from communities that you participate in is a nice thing to have and that downvotes can hurt to an extent, even if it's not the same as getting physically slapped. And to be clear, I'm not pointing at you or anyone, I'm just riffing here. I haven't even seen downvotes for a while now.
So yeah, I'd say they're meaningless in a video game sense. You're not going to win any prizes with them. But there's a reason they exist, plus no one is immune to the effects of positive or negative reinforcement.
When I first got on Lemmy, there were a bunch of discussions about getting rid of downvotes, and I thought this was a bad idea. For the most part, they do a good job of allowing the communities to self-moderate. Sure there are trolls that downvote everything, and they can rot in Hell, but they’re a very small majority. Generally speaking, up/downvotes provide an easy way to sort the wheat from the chaff in both posts and comments.
remember the heated discussions about the "proper" use of downvotes?
iirc there was a bloc of users who were very adamant that downvotes only be used for indicating the comment in question failed to adhere to the 1964 Chicago Manual of Style regarding commas or something, but everybody else was using it to say "don't like it" and they were super-cheesed.
There are also trolls who constantly say controversial things. Looking at the downvote counter tells you something.
There are also people who... I don't really know what's going in the head of a person who intentionally insult everyone they come across. Did a nefarious little brother hijack that account or is that person really trying get some achievement about maxing out the downvote counter? Some people are a complete mystery. Either way, the downvote counter serves as a red flag.
I thought about that too. If they were completely meaningless then why would they be used for sorting purposes. Turns out, they do mean something and they can be used for something.
I don't even know you have points on Lemmy. how do I check them
https://kbin.earth/u/@gi1242@lemmy.world
Reputation points 7099
All depends on which app / UI you're using I guess but it should look pretty much like Reddit almost everywhere. The only difference here is that there's no grand total at the top of your profile like a high score. But when I was signed up on world, in the app I'm using you could see separate up and down vote counts for everything.
The first person to say the earth went around the sun got downvoted into oblivion… but they were still correct.
Upvotes and downvotes can be farmed by telling the various communities what they want to hear.
But, like you say, voting shows the level of interaction and traction your post gets - or doesn’t. I’m not sure there’s any other option at the moment.
I agree. At the very least they say "this many people liked what you said or posted enough to click this button", and that is far from meaningless.
Banned, despite plenty of upvotes.
https://old.lemmy.world/comment/14632786
Happens all the time. Anything to say @ReadyUser31@lemme.world or @aeronmelon@lemme.world? How powerful do you feel when all anyone has to do to reveal you're "deleted" post is to click "source"?
I just disable "show votes" in settings and that's it.
What if we could trade in our Internet points for some sick cosmetics 🤣
Honestly, that way for obtaining flair and shit would be preferable to spending actual money. Especially if I could turn them in for a physical Lemmy shirt to wear IRL.
My profile already looks amazing, no need for mtx.
We all know that decorating your in-game character with cosmetics is the true endgame.
You have a point.
You have many.
And my axe!
I'll sell you mine. Hell, I might even trade some points for a block of your finest cheese.
I'm afraid we're fresh out of red leicester sir, it's been on order for two weeks.
Is gouda fine?
Haven’t been able to pay my bills with fake or real internet points yet. I can give you something equally worthless in return though. How about an AI drawing of a capybara?
If Muskrat signs up for Lemmy he will pay someone for a high upvote account.
I've been able to exchange some of my points in the Lemmy Store for a rub on tattoo.
rub on
( ͡ᵔ ͜ʖ ͡ᵔ )
For those that don't know this is in reference to Reddit's process of "vote fuzzing". Most explanations online explain it as altering the votes to prevent things like rigging the vote or an individual going to someone else's page and down voting everything they've posted or commented. I think in reality it's more obtuse and erratic. I don't know if the level of "fuzz" varies based off the age of the post or the total number of votes.
Even more fake here because you can turn off down votes
I'm pretty sure you can do that on individual subreddits as well. Do you mean on an instance wide level?
Admins have the option to disable it on a per instance basis.
Since 0.19.4 you can also hide downvotes in your settings.
And we should keep it that way. As soon as you can derive value from your profile karma and/or it means something, it'll break any sense of earnest discussion some are trying to have in the first place.
Look at Reddit: any serious thread is peppered with might-be-funny one-liners in the hopes of catching some upvotes. This makes those threads harder to read through, although it does make for funny AI summary results.
It's not just off topic banter to increase karma though. It's also reposting old memes, jokes and stories that did well in the past to farm that sweet karma. Throw in some copied top-level comments too and some subreddits are basically perpetually living in déjà vu.
Let's not try to aim for that.
Some of that could be karma grinding, but for the most part, that is probably just people having fun. Many come to social media platforms for recreational purposes.
upvotes go brrrrrr
I love internet points they make me feel good
But it is incredible the power those points have in our mind! Just now I'm being downvoted for a comment I did and I immediately felt the need to go there and justify the point I was trying to make. It took some effort to convince myself that I don't care about that and that I don't have to justify to those that didn't understand my point.
Since 0.19.4 you can hide downvotes in your settings. Unfortunately LW still runs 0.19.3
if you're using Voyager it's a setting you can change to just show upvotes.
Must confess, those points do seem to wield some strange power over my mind. Kinda scary actually. Some people have disabled those numbers entirely, and I’m beginning to see why.
If we don't have fake internet points, then how will we know what to think? Won't somebody think of the points‽ 😭
Who will be the final boss in this battle?
Dr. Integer Overflow.
My guess is, you’ll need 4 294 967 296 votes to start the boss fight.
I hope Lemmy's internet points never become a thing people view as important. The way people act on Reddit to get a handful of up votes is embarrassing.
Is never counted as a total right? As long as it stays that way it shouldn't.
I've seen some front ends for Lemmy total it.
I like vote counts on posts, because they help me understand what sort of content the community likes, and what sorts I should just not post again. But a cumulative total on my profile? I really don't care.