I always thought it was a pretty smart idea on Reddit’s side to have the posts and comments be automatically upvoted by their author, saving them the tough choice between playing fair or boosting their initial reach a little; and if you had particularly low self-esteem, this enabled you to reduce your own points by not one, but two, by self-downvoting.
Here, both upvotes and downvotes (or rather, favourites and reduces) start at 0, and you have the option to upvote your post manually (which I’ve already seen some people do) - which, while currently does not increase your reputation, does give you that small initial boost by making it look like people are starting to engage with your post.

What do you think - should the posts and comments be automatically upvoted by the author? If not, are you fine with people upvoting themselves, or do you feel it’s unfair towards the ones that don’t do it?

  • s804@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I always upvote myself. For me it is that if I can’t support (and love) myself first, how others can do that after too? So since I enjoy what I post I always upvote and boost them. Hell yeah I don’t care if people don’t approve, I believe in myself and don’t need to be approved from others. If the feature exists it should be used, otherwise just remove it or make it automatic hahaha

    • missmystique@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Self upvotes feel fine yet self boosts feel excessive to me, but I don’t have an actual reason for thinking that.

        • BBKuma@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Boosts are basically like “retweets” where if someone you follow boost a thread or post, you would see it in your subscribed feed.

        • parrot-party@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          There’s two up voting systems at play right now. Kbin is in the process of switching boosts to upvotes but the Reddit explosion happened part way through. I’m not sure if boosts will stay or turn into something different.

  • sdcSpade@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I sit on my hand and upvote my comments/posts with a numb hand so it doesn’t feel like I’m the one doing it.

  • duringoverflow@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I liked reddit’s approach. Self upvoting your posts if they aren’t upvoted feels ridiculous. (ok, I have upvoted 1-2 of mine when trying to figure out how it works, but it still feels ridiculous)

    So I would prefer if they are already pre-upvoted, or you should not be allowed to vote your posts/comments

  • young_broccoli@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I dont really care much for karma/reputation. I apreciate a reply more than the votes and I think the way it was done in reddit, used as a dislike/like button is wrong when it should have been a self moderating tool to filter the true, constructive discussions and conversations from trolls, meaningless and off-topic stuff.

    For example. I used to browse a lot of r/horror and r/movies and it was impossible to have a conversation about the quality and merits of a movie. If the movie was popular enough, every comment disliking or criticizing it, no matter how well written it was or how valid their arguments might have been was downvoted to oblivion while some banal comment like “Shut up! Its a masterpiece” was top comment with hundreds of upvotes. The opposite happened if the topic was widely disliked.
    Then comments and replies just becomes into a popularity contest and not about engaging with the communities.

    That being said, I wont judge anyone who upvotes or boosts their contributions, you do you. And as this site grows it might even be needed to get an extra bit of visibility for new contributions.

  • Armaell@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    It was quite a smart choice.

    But another way to do things could also be to disallow users to upvote their own content. Either by disabling the button, or just silently ignoring it.

    One is probably more to avoid user to complain they can’t do it. The other more logical at a dry level

  • Eavolution@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I don’t think it matters if users upvote their own stuff or not, however I don’t think users should be given the choice. It should either be users always upvote their own stuff, or users can’t upvote their own stuff.

  • cowvin@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I don’t think people should be able to vote on their own posts. It’s meaningless. It doesn’t matter if everyone starts from 0 or +1 or whatever.

  • Haunting_Tale_5150@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Don’t really care cause in reddit, there was auto upvotes, so I can see for some people upvoting themselves makes it easier for the migration. I personally don’t upvote myself, but I get wanting to make a new experience familiar.

  • missingno@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Upvoting myself feels weird, but it feels like something I might have to do to help my posts gain traction, especially if everyone else is gonna do it. Reddit had it right, should just be the default.

  • Wage_Slave@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    “As reddit user begin to learn and appreciate their new habitats, we see some have already found usage of existing systems to pat themselves on the back. While not unexpected, how quickly, and efficiently they have done so is really remarkable. This digital nature relocation of the Reddit population truly has been fascinating”

    Updoots self nothing to see here, guys.

  • BigVault@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Not fussed either way, if someone wants the little boost from the initial +1 they see from their own upvote, more power to them.
    I’m happy starting at zero and seeing where the community takes me.

      • Timwi@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Unless they told you and you believe them, you can’t really know if it’s them who unvoted themselves, since Reddit only shows the total.

  • jcrm@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I think Reddit’s vote system was pretty near perfect, especially in the early days. You should upvote your own posts by default. I also prefer having a combined “score” rather than different scores for upvotes and downvotes.

    Oh, and can we get a “sort by top” for comments? I miss that from Reddit.

    • IncognitoErgoSum@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I also prefer having a combined “score” rather than different scores for upvotes and downvotes.

      I don’t. A post that’s been voted 100 times and down 95 times is completely different from a post that’s been upvoted 5 times and not downvoted at all. That’s good information to have, both as a poster and a reader.

      Also, enough people use downvotes as an “I disagree” button that I don’t think they ought to be counted (or should be counted minimally) when determining what content rises to the top, or we’ll end up with another echo chamber.