Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
I upvote things that I enjoyed reading for the quality of the argument they contributed, and downvote things that I don't think contributed anything. I try to do so independently of agreement/disagreement, but if I'm honest I probably don't succeed, I am much more likely to downvote someone who cites the dread pirate jim or whoever than I am to downvote somebody who cites Aquinas.
With the addendum that I automatically downvote anyone who tries to work the refs and complain about downvotes. "I know this is controversial..." downvoted. "I'm gonna get a lot of downvotes for this..." downvoted. " "Hot take here, but maybe [obvious statement]..." downvoted. If your comment has the word downvote in it, 99% chance I'm downvoting it.
I will say that I think up/downvotes are one of those discourses that is most full of liars. Almost everyone claims they don't care and it's stupid if you do, but most people do care at least some of the time. Everyone claims that the downvote button isn't a disagree button, or whatever weirdo shit they're claiming, but it obviously is used that way on every forum I've seen with the system in place. Everybody "knows" that upvotes don't mean a quality post and downvotes don't mean a bad post, but periodically you see the argument brought back up that my post has x number of upvotes so some people agree.
The reality of up/downvotes is that people use it primarily with the goal of "I would like the author of this post to feel good" vs "I would like the author of this post to feel bad." The rest of the motivation is largely extraneous.
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