Lately I often read about kbin.social being similar to lemmy but more accessible. So I created an account there to check it out. My experience so far is a little mixed. From kbin I can access all Lemmy posts, although I find the interface less intuitive to join new communities. So from the kbin side it feels like an other Lemmy instance.

But when searching for kbin from this Lemmy Account, I do not find much. I feel like I am missing some basic concept, that makes it pretty clear. Why this is such a one way experience.

So now I am wondering: How does this work, what are the difference, what do both sites have in common?

  • Derproid@beehaw.org
    47·
    2 years ago

    Downvotes are used to show disagreement without an explanation which just stifles discussion, and for off-topic comments reporting them works as an alternative.

    I do prefer user moderated conversations through downvotes but with the way they are used I don’t really trust us users enough for that.

    • cujo
      9·
      2 years ago

      I just don’t necessarily think the feature should be removed just because it isn’t always used as intended. I know there are folks who use it as a “disagree” button, and that’s… fine, I guess lol. I think Lemmy does a decent enough job of preventing abuse of the downvote button by removing the concept of karma. There are no imaginary internet points to be gained or lost. As a bonus, you can always turn vote values off entirely for yourself, as opposed to disabling downvotes on an instance. That way you can upvote/downvote organically, without your perception being skewed by existing votes.

      I wouldn’t necessarily refuse to use a service based solely on whether it has a downvote feature or not, but I think downvote serves a different purpose than reporting. If I were on a platform that didn’t support downvotes, I do think I would feel obliged to be a lot more liberal with my upvotes, lol. Which… maybe that’s not a bad thing. 🤔

      But again, through the power of federation we can both interact on a platform that can satisfy both our beliefs, and that’s a pretty awesome thing.

      • FaceDeer@lemmy.ml
        2·
        2 years ago

        What might be neat is a user preference that allows one to enable or disable downvoting just for you. If you disable downvoting then you get a different view of the community and comments that only accounts for upvotes.

        • Gollum@feddit.de
          2·
          2 years ago

          I guess things like this could also be done just on client side. Kbin and Lemmy definitely need better clients. 😅