For me, it’s equivalent to a statement that “I would like to see more of something like this”. That sometimes means upvoting things that I don’t agree with, yet very often I’ll pass over things that I do (such as “^This” - I agree, but don’t want to see more of it:-). Often I’ll upvote nearly every comment in a thread, to signal hopes for increased participation. To me it’s a signal for health and vibrancy of a community to see such.
But other people I guess use it as an “I agree” or “like” button? If that’s you, do you use it sparingly? What’s the rationale there - that when it is delivered, it means more? But with Lemmy so small, why not deliver it more often to help it grow? I mean you feel free to do you, I’m just curious. Maybe you feel it could encourage “karma farming”?
I’d even like to ask lurkers what they think, although I suppose that literally by definition I cannot:-). Then again, I recently became a lurker myself by watching the embedded Loops videos at https://tesseract.dubvee.org/c/[email protected], and I really miss being able to comment or vote on videos to help guide others to which ones I feel are most/least worthwhile to watch. It feels like a finger is missing - I reach out to do my normal activity and it’s gone.:-) So perhaps if someone was recently a lurker, what are your thoughts too?
It’s situational.
Voting on posts, other than when I fat finger a button while scrolling and don’t notice it, is going to be about the community that post is in. Does it fit the community, and is it bringing something useful/good/interesting/whatever to the community. Sometimes a post just being on topic isn’t enough to merit stopping to vote. But one that’s not only on topic not contributes, that’s worth the extra effort.
I wasn’t ever prone to using votes as an agree/disagree button, but stopped entirely a few years ago on reddit, unless that was the way a sub operated. Obviously, a community where votes are supposed to represent something in specific, that’s how you use them. Unpopular opinion communities, as an example, you don’t vote based on it being a good post for the C/, you base it on whether or not the presented opinion is popular or not in your eyes.
Now, comments are more complicated. You can use votes as a like button without any issues. It won’t fuck up the flow of things. But, in general, I tend to up vote more often in comments simply because it’s much more common to find comments that are contributing to the discussion in a topical and useful way than those that are neutral to meh.
Thing is, I’ll actually up vote things I disagree with, when they’re part of a good discussion. There’s been times I have to make myself do it because I disagree hard, and it feels “wrong” to say that it’s a good comment anyway. But you kinda have to do that, or the whole point of votes in the first place gets ruined. It’s supposed to be primarily a tool to help filter and sort the discussions so that the most useful stuff is at the top.
Not that I don’t also fat finger comments, but I tend to do more of my comment voting intentionally.
But, again, comments are more situational. Up voting a short joke comment may well be useful, even when the comment is off topic because the comment is just that good/funny. We need those jokes and asides here and there, so “liking” them by voting despite being off topic makes sense to me.
But I’ll up vote damn near any response to me. It’s just courtesy. Someone participating in a conversation is inherently contributing to the community as a whole, and the post, even when it gets tangential or off topic. Unless they’re dicks. Then they can fuck right off, and it’s a down vote.
Mind you, I don’t just go through and vote on everything, it would take more time and effort than it’s worth on a personal level. It has to catch my eye in the amount of time my interest level is engaged.