I was wondering how users tend to judge what to upvote, what do downvote, and what not to vote on.
I made this comment which got me wondering what others think and do
Personally I upvote almost everything. I see upvote as “this is a good Lemmy post/comment” and downvote as “this is a bad Lemmy post/comment”. Most of what I see is good. Bad things are things such as misinformation, bad faith stuff / trolling, people being mean/annoying, bad (in my opinion) takes, people being wrong/stupid about stuff, irrelevant things, etc. When I do not vote it’s for one of 3 reasons: either I don’t understand what it is saying, it makes a reference I don’t get, or I can’t determine whether it’s good or bad (usually because it’s unclear).


I understand the sentiment and I also find it grating when it feels like a decision motivated by things I don’t approve of, but words like ‘heck’ and ‘gosh’ are a very common part of language in their own right. People grow up listening to their families and communities using the words, and then continue to see it everywhere online, so it’s just like any other word for them. I also don’t think it’s necessarily self-censorship to purposely choose milder language with different connotations, we don’t always want the harshest words.