It is objectively a lot more male than Reddit or other social media. Reddit has many issues, but lack of women is not one of them.

  • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.socialEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    Yeet - https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Yeet

    Okay, thanks. I can never seem to remember it, maybe because it feels so unnatural. Maybe it would help if I knew where it came from, though. *shrug*

    Pragmatically, they’ve end up being more a social proof / opinion suppression / brigading tool.

    That seems exceptionally pessimistic to me, but maybe you have more insight in to all that than I do. Personally I think multiple things can be true about upvotes / downvotes, some useful, some harmful perhaps.

    In any case, there is no debate that upvotes are useful and valuable to me when it comes to posting and commenting.

      • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.socialEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        Well, I remember ye olden days of Usenet - we mostly got along without them, and without some of the issues they seem to cause.

        Things change, though. Upvote/downvote was one of the many things Reddit and other places trialed over the years, and based on the success, stuck with it. Me, I barely spent any time on Usenet, but it occurs to me that the userbase was probably smaller. A much, much larger userbase probably fits better with upvote/downvote, so the comparison there is likely skewed, methinks.

        ‘Dopamine rush’ is exactly right, and I think it’s useful and informational, similar to the way that people react to your statements and ideas in real life. I do think they can have an ‘echo chamber’ effect and help promote the problem that a popular thing or opinion can be completely wrong, but to me that just means that upvotes/downvotes aren’t perfect, not that they should be completely discarded.

        https://jacobdesforges.com/you-should-quit-reddit-distribution-wide/

        Not sure what you want me to do with a link to a book, but I don’t even agree with the premise of the title sentence. Reddit is still very useful to me, and I know of no other place that replicates the variety of content, there.

          • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.socialEnglish
            1·
            2 months ago

            Ok, but I think you’re conflating two separate things

            I feel like they’re distinctly separate things, and I thought I’d communicated as much. Oh, well.

            …the voting system consistently produces pathological outcomes at scale.

            That seems like… a little much. I do agree that upvotes/downvotes indeed gamify the system, but on the whole would say that the end-effect on Reddit results in a big bunch of hoomons acting in typical hoomon ways, which is with deep undercurrents of fickle, ignorant, selfish, feel-good behavior.

            The Usenet comparison wasn’t really about scale. It was about the incentive structure.

            Yeah, I get that, but I do observe that there are advantages to upvote/downvote that indeed work better on a larger scale. I’m not sure they’re really needed on a smaller scale.

            I’d say I agree with most of the things you wrote, but remain unconvinced that upvote/downvote is so absolutely toxic as to merit tossing. And of course, I don’t think it’s going to happen, anyway.

            Aggregate behaviour amongst naked apes? Yeah, I would tend to agree. Now what?

              • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.socialEnglish
                1·
                2 months ago
                1. Kill all the apes (or just wait 15 more minutes)

                We’re doing a great job of that ourselves, so mission accomplished?

                1. Enjoy Lemmy

                I’ve been on Reddit for 10yrs, and the Fediverse for the past 2.5yrs, and don’t see that changing anytime soon. I’m also skeptical as to the FV ever matching Reddit in terms of variety and bulk of content. The situation just is what it is.