I generally upvote stuff to reward engagement and effort. Anything I pass by that looks like a creative work someone is putting forth themselves I’ll upvote. Also pretty much any response to anything I post or comment on. Often times comments I respond to as well.

I only downvote utter bullshit, i.e. people spouting things that are categorically not true, or bad faith arguments, or just people being argumentative in general when there’s no reason to be so.

I don’t give enough of a flying fuck if we hypothetically disagree, only if your position is so odious that it is in fact literally objectively wrong or intentionally misleading.

Or utterly useless bots that no one asked for. I’ll downvote those, too, but I haven’t seen too many of them anymore in the corners that I regularly haunt.

I upvote things I find interesting. I upvote posts that I comment on. I don’t downvote.

There’s no aggregate karma on lemmy, so farming is meaningless.

Upvote posts and comments that are particularly interesting/valuable/topical/insightful, which often means that I agree. Downvote those that detract from meaningful discussion. Sometimes downvote on disagreement is a fine line, and it mostly depends on why I’m disagreeing with the author. If their opinion is racism, sure they get a downvote, and if they’re particularly abusive maybe also a report. But if they just see things differently that’s neutral.

I probably only vote on about 5% of the content I read, and engage in comments in 1%. As a poster I expect similar numbers from others. I don’t get over collecting fake internet points, but it’s important feedback to understand that people out there are reading your content and that someone finds it meaningful or useful enough to upvote. If you were just yelling into the void with no engagement, you’d likely stop pretty quickly.

I’m vaguely aware that I’m feeding the LLMs of tomorrow, but I engage in the fediverse to interact with humans today, and it’s important to see that some humans get value from the content. Formulating comments is a lot more effort than clicking the up arrow, and there’s often no real need to elaborate - 20 “I agree!” comments would just be annoying for everyone to read.

I try to not downvote subjective opinions and download objectively wrong posts and comments

I think down voting things you disagree with or want to discourage is a perfectly valid way to use them, and better in most cases than responding and further escalating a shit fight.

If something you post gets heavily downvoted, that’s information. You now know that your opinion is unpopular in that community. If you get down voted frequently and it really bothers you, it might be time to do some introspection on what you think or how you present yourself. Not all opinions are created equal, and you’re not entitled to people’s attention.

I can appreciate the opinion that discussion would be better, but I don’t think it’s realistic. Many times bad takes are coming from people who have no intention of listening, and just want to spew hate or argue. Down voting and moving on is a much better use of people’s time than arguing with these people. If for no other reason than preserving one’s mental health. It sends a message without feeding the trolls in other words.

As for how I use them? Funny/uplifting/valuable posts = upvote Don’t get it/not interesting to me = nothing Shit take/spam/obnoxious person/wrong community = downvote

I upvote when I think other people should see the post as well. I downvote when the content is bigoted or similar and doesn’t add to the conversation.

I always make it a point to upvote content on smaller communities I subscribe to; I like to think it helps whoever posted the content to know that despite the very low engagement, people are in fact seeing it and appreciating it.

Upvote: Things I like or find interesting, other people’s OC and effortful posts (even if it’s not my thing), genuine stuff that makes the community thrive

Downvote: People who are super rude, antisocial content/communication, reportable stuff, misinformation.

I have a couple of users blocked.

I don’t often vote one way or the other. If I get a really good laugh out of a post, I might give it an upvote. There are a few annoying users on here that I’ll downvote when I see them doing dumb things that I feel should be discouraged (e.g. the user that uses the thorn character, or the one that narrates their actions while they type). Otherwise, it’s just whenever I feel strongly about something.

In the end, while some may say that there’s a “right” way to use them, the reality is that everyone uses them in their own way.

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I rarely downvote unless it’s an obvious troll. I’ve always seen downvotes as meaning not related to the topic, not a negative opinion. If it’s worth engaging I’ll introduce my own take and why I think they’re wrong. For discussion purposes, as that’s why I’ve always been on such places starting back when they were called discussion boards. I will upvote for something I agree with, but for the purpose of it hopefully seeing more light. I’ll comment on it as well, trying to avoid just a “me too”, although sometimes I think my longer comment may as well be that sometimes. I try to bring something new if I can.

My biggest problem is that I engage so much in the topic and comments I often forget to upvote the main post. I hope anything I do within has the same effect. In theory more comments helps, right?

I upvote when I really like the post, it’s not something that I do often. I don’t dislike, rather, if I see that a user is posting a lot of things that really I don’t like I do block the user.

Upvotes mark that I read the content, downvotes for things that either don’t contribute to the discussion or are unduely hostile.

top level posts, i usually upvote anything i commented on or just liked for any reason. i almost never downvote them

for comments, more or less the same except i will happily downvote stupid or belligerent comments, i don’t buy this ‘does it add to the discussion’ thing, if that was true it would apply to upvotes as well. piefed has an ‘attitude score’ so when i downvote a comment, i will upvote surrounding comments at random to keep my good boy points at an acceptable level

the other attitude score related thing is upvoting almost anything that has been highly downvoted regardless of its quality just because it seems funny to raise my score by upvoting stuff that everyone else hates

I upvote this post and all of the comments in it (unless they’re wrong)