Before Lemmy I never really did social media. Lemmy is my first experience in getting ratioed. I notice a surprising amount of my posts get 50% or more downvotes. I never realized how divisive my opinions and communication style is.
Thankfully I’m in a good mental place in my life, so this doesn’t bother me… too much. But I can see how it would have a big impact on people testing their toes, and expressing their voice for the first time, that dopamine hit of validation is tempered by the lows of feeling unpopular social pressure.
I’ve notice other people getting downvotes, and they just delete their comment entirely. I leave mine up, since I believe in keeping the forum record open and transparent is more important then my posting history.
I keep posting to Lemmy in spite of it, because I know Lemmy is just at its starting point, and content is more important then my personal validation. (but it does eat at me some)
When you post something that gets negative feedback do you modify your post? does it change your opinion? does it impact your participation in the community?
I had a recent experience, but on reddit because it was a discussion thread for a show, and there wasn’t one on lemmy yet. I was just questioning the reason for a particular change of character in the show and that I didn’t think it was necessary. I was in the negative by the next day. Then I added an edit to my comment and said that instead of downvoting, how about you explain why you think it was necessary for that change in the show. After that, my comment’s karma went back to positive and people started to reply about their thoughts instead. Downvotes are absolutely not being used correctly more often than not.