Just joined Lemmy today. From what I understand, there are different Lemmy instances that host different communities. I supposed that to interact in a community hosted in a certain instance, I would need to create an account for that instance. Ended up creating 10 different accounts.
IIRC, there is research that people tend to “pile on” when they see downvotes, but not when seeing upvotes. So by disallowing them, you kind of keep all posts on the same playing field? Not that I support the decision, so I don’t actually care enough to properly look it up; but I imagine that’s the thinking, more than personal fragility.
I could imagine if there were a karma system that downvoting would also reduce your own karma, do keep people from just aimlessly downvoting everything as much? But that’s just a thought experiment, not a suggestion. 😅
I use down vote as a I disagree with your take button, so do see merit in not being there. Also seen in the past where some tech suggestion is just downvoted, but nobody left an indication as to why. So it might also push people to actually explain why something is incorrect so those who come across the comment later can see why.
There is a karma system! At least on kbin where you are. You have 1 reputation point.
Last I saw, kbin’s reputation was broken. Used to be that boosts and upvotes were swapped for Lemmy compatibility and the reputation counter hadn’t yet been updated to account for that.
It might still be, I’m not sure. I have no idea what it is counting in the first place though 😅
Do you know what goes in to reputation points? Do downvotes have a negative effect? Genuinely asking.