this post was submitted on 25 May 2025
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I'm one of the "imaginary internet points" people. To the point that I've turned off display of votes. I genuinely have no idea how many votes in either direction my posts or comments get … and don't care. Voting systems are stupid; they never work because they're so easily gamed.
My feed is set to New by default, not "Top" or "Controversial". I'll sometimes flip it to "Old" if i want the conversational history. That's about it. It doesn't matter to me what J. Random Internet Person thinks of posts. It matters to me what I think about them.
Yeah this is definitely true. Probably more so for smaller platforms too. Blåhaj doesn't have downvotes enabled and you couldn't even if you wanted to (which I basically never do anyway). But after checking out an instance with them enabled for a while, I'm not all that impressed with how they're used around here. They probably get used like that on Reddit too but you barely notice it there.
And I'm of the camp where yeah, they're imaginary internet points but it's also something built into the platform for a little fun and also to boost quality content. I like upvoting basically everyone that has a decent conversation with me, for example. To me it feels like it's giving just a little extra acknowledgement, like an "I see you". And it's fun. Or should be. I'm a pretty gloomy person but not that cynical. This place is in a weird in between where people want it to be like a '90s forum site but also they want their 'agree' and 'disagree' buttons to mash.
I dunno, I'm over the event itself but I still have the bad taste in my mouth and a different impression of things and certain people now.
For what it's worth, even though you don't care lol, you're one of the people that I always enjoy seeing around here. I actually tried checking out your Pixelfed, couldn't figure out how to view it from my instance, wasn't in the mood to look up FAQs and shit, and haven't been back since lol.
The problem is that with voting, "quality" becomes equated with "popular", not with "correct" or "humane" or "important" or …
Yeah, they just turn into 'agree' or 'disagree' buttons. Personally I have fun with it though. Upvoting content around here feels like one of the ways to contribute to this place, so that people who spend their time posting here get the psychological boost to carry on and feel like they're appreciated.
As long as it's part of how things work around here, like it or not, those votes and the direction they go in are going to make people feel like they belong or don't. Especially when they're new. And taking away the grand total doesn't change that either, it just obfuscates some of it. So I like to try and be a positive user here in that regard, personally.
Edit: Just because most other people are assholes when it comes to this, doesn't mean that I have to.
(I should paranthetically mention that I do hit upvotes often for the "extra acknowledgement" thing. I don't see my own upvotes, but that's no reason not to express appreciation to others.)