Do you rarely vote on anything at all?
Do you upvote when something is interesting but rarely downvote? Do you downvote when something isn’t interesting but rarely upvote?
Do you vote to signal agreement or disagreement?
Do you vote to encourage insightful replies regardless whether you agree or not?
I rarely interact with the voting system on sites, aside from the occasional missclick, that is. While I think it can be useful when searching for answers or tutorials, especially on topics you’re not familiar with and can’t judge competence vs BS, I think in more social spaces it leads to both echo chambers and karma farming, and it feeds social media addiction by giving you little validations for every upvote you receive.
I also think it prevents people from having more meaningful interactions. Rather than replying with 'This was insightful", “I disagree because…” or “that was really funny” You just make a number go up or down.
I upvote more than downvote. I don’t even downvote trolls and usually reserve the downvotes to obnoxious commentators.
I agree. I see perfectly reasonable comments with hundred of upvotes but with one downvote and it makes me wonder why (maybe that one downvote is being petty for the sake of just having a downvote).
Downvoting is a lazy way to disagree. Back when Reddit was great, the etiquette was to explain why you downvoted and disagree, but spez did away with the guideline.