For a variety of reasons, I’ve been on Reddit quite a bit over the last year or so after having been largely absent from it for many years. For most of that time, I’ve mostly been on non-political sites related to hobby interests but, since the election, I’ve also spent some time participating in the politics, world politics, and fednews subreddits.
What I’ve noticed there mirrors what I see here but with a massively larger universe. The rules of the site, dubbed “Reddiquette,” clearly state that up/down voting is designed to measure value added: “If you think something contributes to conversation, upvote it. If you think it does not contribute to the subreddit it is posted in or is off-topic in a particular community, downvote it.”
In reality, almost everyone uses it to display their opinion of the post headline, without any regard for the article.
This is especially amusing on the politics and world politics subs, where the only thing one is allowed to post is a direct link to a news article on an approved site. The politics sub further specifies that the headline must be exactly that used on the site, minus a handful of keywords (Breaking, etc.).
And yet, because most of the participants in these subs are anti-Trump, they’ll simply downvote any article whose headline—and these are news articles, not opinion pieces—suggests that anyone is happy with Trump’s performance. Even if it’s an opinion poll from a reputable organization.
The fednews site, naturally, is mostly federal employees frightened or anxious by the various DOGE transgresions. But the same thing is happening there. Any suggestion that a lawsuit is likely to fail because a particular action is likely to be within Trump’s authority will be downvoted.
The result, of course, is an echo chamber, as anyone who deviates even slightly from the mob consensus is viewed as a troll.
We instituted an up/down voting system here a long time ago in order to encourage people to contribute usefully to the conversation rather than just trolling. Once it became clear that any comment supporting conservative positions or politicians would get downvoted, we removed the downvote option, leaving only upvotes.
This helped, I think, in that thoughtful comments tend to get upvotes. But, still, it’s clear that comments that echo the left-leaning consensus of the commentariat get rewarded. And there are those who miss the ability to downvote, since it ostensibly removes the need to directly respond to trolling. (Although, people seem naturally predisposed to do that, regardless.)
I’m not sure what to make of all this, to be honest. There’s no way to enforce a rule to upvote based on quality, not viewpoint. And I think this site, in particular, is going to have a hard time attracting thoughtful Trump supporters (and, yes, I think they exist considering how many of them I know) given the academic, analysis-driven nature of the commentary here. But I do wish there was an ability to encourage thoughtful cross-viewpoint exchange.
