Insulting or attacking other users, even so much saying “fuck you”, “fuck [this group of people]”, “you’re an idiot” or anything like that while debating IS against the rules of Lemmy.ml. This goes for every political view, you DO NOT get free passes no matter if you’re leftist, rightist, communist, anarchist, liberal, etc. If you’re confident of your position you should be able to debate in a civil manner without cursing someone else out. I understand that debates can get heated and frustrating, hell I’ve debated with a good bunch of users, but you can still express that without resorting to name calling or insults.

Check the modlog, we HAVE removed replies of this nature from every political view, and even if we don’t say it every time, we DO keep track of both removals per user and general behaviour even if it doesn’t get removed, and too many infractions WILL result in a ban.

That said, it is NOT against the rules to present countering facts or opinions, or to have political opinions in general. Don’t report comments for “being pro communist” or “being pro China” unless they have broken an actual rule, namely the ones about being civil. Don’t attack or insult people from Lemmygrad just because they’re from Lemmygrad or they’re arguing for Marxism-Leninism or supporting a country you don’t. If they’re presenting their points in a civil manner (which had been the case for almost everyone from Lemmygrad), you can either read it and respond in kind with your questions or counterpoints, or just move on. People coming over from other instances is not brigading if they’re mostly being civil, that’s the whole point of federation.

Things people disagree with getting down voted is also acceptable, it’s not considered an attack on you if your comment has a negative score, and it doesn’t even significantly affect the ranking because of the relatively low comment volumes currently on Lemmy. It’s just imaginary internet points, relax.

    • Dessalines@lemmy.mlM
      10·
      2 years ago

      The votes are really more about helping sort popular / unpopular content more that anything, so emojis wouldn’t help with that.

      Without scores or voting, its back to the days of forums where you have to scroll through hundreds of pages to find something decent.

      • Stoned_Ape@lemmy.ml
        32·
        2 years ago

        to find something decent.

        What does decent mean? Something popular? Or something with quality content and comments?

        • Dessalines@lemmy.mlM
          9·
          2 years ago

          All three I suppose? Here’s an example from xdadevelopers of what dealing with old-school forums is like. A 17-page thread of people trying to discover the best practices / things to do for battery life. Without any scoring or voting, you have to read through hundreds of replies.

          Some threads have thousands of comments, going through each of them to find what’s good might take days.

            • Dessalines@lemmy.mlM
              8·
              2 years ago

              For the most part. If you have a thread of 10k comments, would you rather read through each of them individually, or have them be sorted by collective preference?

              • Stoned_Ape@lemmy.ml
                16·
                2 years ago

                That’s not at all what I’m talking about. I argue that using votes as “likes”, instead of how the Reddiquette originally meant it, is a bad idea for the very reason you are stating. Sorting by popularity is not going to highlight the best solution or argument, but the most popular one.

                • Dessalines@lemmy.mlM
                  8·
                  2 years ago

                  How do you dictate how people use preference buttons? They’re going to use them however they see fit, and that’s a good thing.

                  And how do you find good content without some sort of collective preference? Any site should be able to answer this question: you have a thread with 10k comments, what’s the best way to sort them so that users don’t have to read every comment?

                  • Stoned_Ape@lemmy.ml
                    15·
                    2 years ago

                    How do you dictate how people use preference buttons?

                    Why do you want to dictate it?

                    They’re going to use them however they see fit, and that’s a good thing.

                    If that’s a good thing is the very thing we argue about right now. I disagree that this is a good thing. Especially if you mean that everybody should any system however they like, instead of how it is supposed to be used. If everyone uses any system differently, be it a 5 star system, or upvotes/downvotes, the system is not going to show what people think it shows, but a mix of all interpretations mangled into a number.

                    If half of the people use “3 stars” for an average product, but the other half uses “5 stars” for an average product, the rating is off for both halfs. It’s the same with rating the delivery. If the rating system is meant for the product only, using it for other reasons distorts the result of that system.

                    I hope you can see what I mean.

                    And how do you find good content without some sort of collective preference?

                    As I said elsewhere in this thread: By having a metric that shows how well written and thought through an argument is. You don’t have to “like” what is written or said, but you can acknowledge the quality of the argument.

                    what’s the best way to sort them so that users don’t have to read every comment?

                    Depends on what your goal is: Do you want users to read what they LIKE to read? Then you go for likes/dislikes, so what people want to read most is always at the top, creating a filter bubble, also called an echo chamber.

                    If you want to encourage quality discussion, where arguments are higher rated than emotional replies, then you should not do that.

      • Ninmi
        43·
        2 years ago

        I should mention that I’m only against comment voting. It makes sense for the content itself, but in discourse it only leads to fights of wits.

        • Dessalines@lemmy.mlM
          7·
          2 years ago

          Then you’d have to assign numbers for the different reactions (otherwise how would you compare a heart to a poo emoji ) and we’re back to where we started.