No, not at all. When you get a ton of downvotes but zero responses, assuming you didn’t just post literal nonsense, I consider it proof I’m correct and it’s just a truth people don’t like. When you’re wrong people will downvote you and tell you why, which should be a learning experience that a person should be humble enough to accept but just downvotes or responses only attacking you not you points is pure validation you’re speaking an uncomfortable truth

I pretty much always win with votes. If I get upvotes, I think someone appreciated it. If someone downvotes, I think they’re a hater.

I won’t lie though; my adhd ass checks way too often in a desperate search for dopamine.

Yes, sometimes I say some stupid shit and other people correct me. Sometimes it’s the reverse. We all keep each other accountable.

Only when I’m checking to see what I said before someone replied. Otherwise, I never check.

I like to say it doesn’t change my view, but it probably does more than I realize. Everyone likes to think they’re immune to stuff like that, but we really aren’t.

Yes. Downvotes allow a well educated community to bury misinformation

Usually no, unless I’ve left a reply disagreeing then someone else comes along and downvotes them, makes me look like an ass who downvotes anyone I disagree with. I also check my own comments to see if people agree with me but I’ll keep the comment up either way, if I do change my mind I’d rather leave a new comment or add stuff in an edit.

It’s not too difficult to bot votes on lemmy so they’re even more pointless than they are on reddit.

No

When I see someone downvoted for no good reason, I tend to support them; upvotes don’t sway me at all. My own stuff I see votes as a guide to how well I fit a community (except in one controversial group which attracts down votes – there voters are meaningless

Down votes are useful for estimating the exactly how badly damaged the sense of humour in the community is.

I pay almost no attention to the scores on other people’s posts, but admittedly, I do sometimes feel disheartened when I see what I consider an extremist view getting heavily upvoted. As for downvotes, I have those hidden, so in that sense, they’re a non-factor for me. But you’re asking whether I care. Of course I care and anyone claiming otherwise is lying. We’re social animals - we care what others think of us. That’s why I hid the downvotes in the first place: so they wouldn’t affect me. Mean comments are enough to deal with; I don’t need to hear the audience booing too.

My perhaps unpopular opinion is that while the voting system itself should remain, the scores should be hidden for everyone - and I mean both upvotes and downvotes. Downvotes don’t mean you’re wrong, and upvotes don’t mean you’re right. They’re just indicators of how popular your opinion is with the audience. That dynamic encourages people to self-censor unpopular views and, conversely, to post meaningless one-liners just for the applause.

I get a giggle whenever I see a throwaway shit comment of mine with many many down votes

Yes. But only if people voted in the right way. You’re not supposed to vote it you agree or disagree with something. That’s not how this is supposed to work.

You’re supposed to vote if the context fits the sub or topic.

I prefer to see both numbers rather than the sum. The variance sort of gives a ‘controversial’ score. Can’t get that with PieFed yet, but I prefer the deduplication of PieFed over the split scores on Voyager.

Usually, no. Not for myself or others. Too many people vote emotionally for them to be useful feedback in most situations.

They also aren’t useful in short time frames on lemmy. I’ve lost track of how many people get whiny about votes, but they just didn’t wait for things to balance out. It’s lemmy, shit takes hours to spread and get seen, especially since not everyone sorts by new. Chill the fuck out.

But sometimes, they can be a warning sign, or an indicator of a successful comment/post. And other times, they can help realize you posted or commented in the wrong place.