Saw this a lot on Reddit. Its not specific to here, just trying to gauge how people think. I’d see people posting about how “X said this! Have you seen what else they said in their site history?” And a stream of votebombing would happen.
I also wonder if this behaviour went the other way. Bias was confirmed, so profiles get a little boost? There are sites that hide posts and comments after a certain number of downvotes, but these always seemed to get the engagement even after.
Post history can be a useful tool to help determine if someone’s asking questions in bad faith
Or if you aren’t sure if someone is being sarcastic and forgot the /s.
I’ve also used it to try to find out what country someone was in when relevant to the discuss (ie, they’re talking about relevant laws in whatever jurisdiction they’re in)
Haha, many a time I’ve rescinded an up or down vote when I realised the comment was or wasn’t being satirical
This right here. I won’t go downvote/upvote their other comments, but I will get a vibe for the person themselves. Usually when I think someone is arguing in bad faith, I’ll check their comments to see if they’re just a troll or simply someone I’m disagreeing with. If they appear to conduct themselves in good faith in general, then instead of dismissing them as a troll, I’ll actually engage and try to learn more from their perspective. If it’s just a troll though, it’s pointless, so I’ll downvote the original comment and move on.
True, but doesnt really establish how others react around them.
Not to downvote them, that’s petty, but if they say something nuts, I do sometimes look at their history to see what other nuts things they’ve said.
I think we’ve all done that.
And i usually find that they’re actually pretty ok people with a few random kooky comments. We all have weird days and jokes or sarcasm that don’t land correctly.
Hah, no. I barely look at someones username. Instead I focus on the comment itself.
I read through the user profile to decide whether or not to block them. Don’t bother with voting from their profile.
Yeah, all the time. It’s the easiest way to identify a troll from a random idiot. I don’t have a problem with random idiots, if someone genuinely likes Trump and believes in authoritarianism, that is fine by me. I don’t like them, but at least they’re engaging in good faith. I can understand and work with that.
But, when their comment history is full of pushing people’s buttons or a wide, inconsistent variety of opinions, then it becomes pretty clear that being shocking is the goal itself. That’s an obvious troll, and should be dealt with as one.
edit: Note, I don’t bother voting while I’m there, so I answered inaccurately. I’m just sleuthing to find out if engaging at all is worth my time. If it is a troll, I actually don’t downvote anything, as large downvote tallies amuse them. If it’s probably not a troll, I don’t downvote then either, but I know I can go back to the original comment and actually talk to this person like a human being without wasting my own time.
So, actually I don’t downvote through people’s comment history. I do skim quickly through them though, reading for good-faith engagement. Or a lack of it.
I don’t upvote very often either, since I’m reading and scrolling too fast to bother. Unless I run into a really good post or something, enough to make me stop skimming for a second.
I don’t have a problem with random idiots, if someone genuinely likes Trump and believes in authoritarianism, that is fine by me. I don’t like them, but at least they’re engaging in good faith.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say they’re engaging in good faith…
I’m hoping that doesn’t happen here. That was a huge problem on reddit. Can we just not bring all the bad things about reddit here? Like Whose Line is it Anyway, the points are made up and nothing matters. Just enjoy this.
Argue the point not the person. I’m glad that the votes don’t really matter here, it means no one’s voice gets silenced like on reddit or tildes.
it doesnt matter on lemmy like it did on reddit: on reddit you would have your posting rate degraded. i know of no penalty on lemmy for being downvoted.
honestly i’d rather be downvoted than blocked on either platform. argue with me and express anger or whatever but cutting me out of the conversation is beyond what i consider to be acceptable. ignoring is onething. preventing me from seeing whats happening and engaging is fucking ridiculous.
I pay no attention to post history when it comes to voting behaviour; posts are as they are. I’m not much of a downvoter; it’s upvote or nothing unless a post is straight up awful inappropriate for the community it is in.
If it’s a niche subject that I’m interested in, I look at their post history in case they’ve found discussions that I’ve missed.
If it’s a particularly good, funny, extreme or otherwise “out there” post I do look at the post history for entertainment value, learning or just morbid curiosity.
Typical attitude of someone who’s commented about rabbits. /s
Yeah well. Rabbits are cool.
Knowing that up and downvotes are public (if not on the user profile through the API, so any crawler/3rd party app has access afaik) I avoid voting at all. I think it’s bad design and really hinders my engagement with posts.
Why?
This comment says it all.
To illustrate op’s point I’m going to spin up an instance, federate with everyone, and not tell anyone what that instance is.
Then I’m going to feed all that data into my new website, called Open Lemmy Stats, where anyone can query the user data ive accumulated. The homepage will be ripe with insights, leaderboards and all kinds of data on prolific users.
Additionally, I’ll display a snapshot/profile of a random user by feeding that users data to GPT4 to make inferences about the user’s political affiliations and display the results.
Worst of all, I’m not going to out my instance for everyone to know it as the one to defederate. In fact I’m spinning up a few instances that will host innocuous communities that I plan to mod and support to give my instances cover for their true purpose: redundant fediverse datastreams for my site, Open Lemmy Stats.
I’ll also have a store where anyone can buy my collected fediverse data for a handsome sum.
Just kidding I’m not doing any of this. But someone absolutely will or already is.
Just read a relevant comment here to add to this (no idea if this will work) [https://sh.itjust.works/comment/2013252]
Because people like OP end up stalking you and downvote everything you post.
A) I dont do that, please do not suggest that B) I’m trying to establish what someone gains from such behaviour. Otherwise you cant counter it. This is part of the reason people leave Reddit and other sites.
But downvotes are fake and there is no karma. Who cares if someone is downvoted?
As others have said, I only look through someone’s profile if they’ve said something batshit insane because I want to see what else they’ve said. It’s why I sometimes scroll through conservative or religious communities on Lemmy if the post shows up in new. I don’t downvote, I just chuckle.
No but sometimes I do the opposite. If someone responds to me answering a difficult question I was stumped by, or has linked to something I find cool I’ll check their profile to see if they’ve posted anything else that’s cool.
Only if they seem suspicious to me as trying to push some kind of idea. Usually posts with leading questions such as “anyone else notice the anecdotal negative experience portrayed as norm”, comments where someone blames a demographic for something, posts that are on topic but have a blatant other purpose meant to start shit (such as cat pics in c/cats held by soldiers), etc.
In too many cases, the user is really adamant about whatever they have to say, and I just end up blocking them.
The most preferred way to engage with toxic people are to downvote the post/comment in question, report them, and block them. Trawling their history like that would make me even unhappier, voting being anonymous or not.
No, but if its an argument I might look at some other comments to see if their being purposely obtuse, if they are having this argument with anyone else, or if they are just filled with bad takes. I won’t upvote or downvote those though.
I don’t care enough about votes to even vote, much less stalk someone. I don’t even understand why people care about votes.
It helps me curb my desire to reply to someone I disagree with when I know it won’t do anything and will only result in frustration, a way to satisfy my more argumentative/salty side without putting that out into the world. I only reply if I really have something to say as a result or if I think the discussion is actually worth undergoing and it’s worth giving my perspective or elaborating on my views. But if they’re not worth engaging with then it’s better if I just down vote and move on. I don’t go through the other person’s history though.
I was like 13 years on reddit and never knew what my karma was and never looked at anyones profile, except once when all the replies were: dude your comment history is fucked, seek help.
Oh yeah, once there was a guy who signed all his comments with: latinos for trump.
And i went to check his comment history because i was sure it’s a troll or astroturfing or whatever. But after a good 5 seconds i realized that i don’t care
I’ll admit I’ve done it to the Reddit admin that cheated on r/place last year
