Clarified here

I really should have clarified this because it seems like a contradiction for me to state that down voting is bad, and to say that when you see something worthy of a downvote, downvote and move on.

When I say worthy of downvote, I don’t mean a disagreement. I’m talking about people being obviously toxic. If malicious people want a reaction, giving it to them is not productive.

For example, if I see a post about plant based meals, and a comment states “I’m not convinced that this is really helping the planet, I don’t see a problem with eating meat” - then engage politely.

But a post like “fucking vegans lol, I’m going to eat 2 steaks tonight” is not worth replying to. Downvote and move on.

You actually don’t need to know what my previous statement was, because it’s totally boring.

I changed “algorithm” to “algorithm/engagement machine” because the first posts were about how the word algorithm is used.

To clarify, my gripe was not with edits, it’s to state that you edited for typos specifically.

That’s their thing. You don’t take your new partner to the spot where you fell in love with your ex. That’s just weird.

negative numbers = negative person.

Negative person + negative person = negative people.

Negative people * negative people = Reddit

It’s less about telling you how to use your software, and more about understanding what it takes to cultivate a healthy community.

It’s too late for reddit, but it’s not too late for us.

A lemming is a real animal.

There’s a misconception that they commit mass suicide by jumping off cliffs.

Downvoting breeds toxicity. It’s regrettable that we are wired to feel validated and rejected by numbers, but if we admit that, we should understand that unnecessarily putting someone into the negative numbers ultimately hurts everyone.

I really want Lemmy to cultivate a community which epitomises virtues of civility. Reserve down votes for uncivil behaviour.

This argument never really made sense to me. Anyone who is being deceptive is not going to tell people they’re editing their comments.

It’s the result of nothing more than a moral panic. There aren’t roving bands of keyboard warriors rolling around making comments and then editing them to make others look stupid.

And even if there were, they could just include “edit: typo” and get away with it. Unless someone takes screenshots.

I think it says more about the community that everyone is expected to prove their innocence. Let’s have a little faith in each other, we’re better than that.

Fixed it to be more precise.

I suppose whether it’s an algorithm comes down to which definition you use.

I think the colloquial definition is something which is user-dependant and very complicated.

However, the dictionary definition is “a finite set of unambiguous instructions”, which fits my initial usage.

Strangely though, the colloquial definition doesn’t fit the dictionary definition, because the YouTube/Twitter/Facebook algorithms are so ambiguous that the people designing them don’t really know what they’re doing, since they are evolving by themselves.