askchapo

i know that inevitably somebody is gonna feel like i'm being snooty to them for not upbearing them

how can someone even know that?

and what is people's expectations? that every single friend of their upvote every single little thing they do on the internet? is this whole website so insecure?

are people somehow tracking each individual other user's responses, tallying this, and judging the other users by it?

doesn't everyone else know that sometimes they will say things that other people are indifferent to, or that they even disagree with? even those people you generally like? isn't that a known fact of social interactions?

I think if you don't want to upvote, you shouldn't. You do you.

Personally I like the voting system. It serves as an approximation of the collective opinion. On niche forums especially, I think the collective opinion is worthy of respect even when I disagree.

how important is this little courtesy to you???? does it bother you if you dont get upvotes when you are talking to people?

well tbh I don't think it's a courtesy, I think it is a gauge of the collective opinions. Sometimes if I make a comment or post I think will be contentious I look later to see "how it did". Not cause I want to know how kindly the readers were feeling, but to know if I understand the opinions of the forum correctly.

One thing I have learned, from various different forums, subreddits, and lemmies, is that loooong rambling comments like this one consistently "do" very badly because they are too boring to read. But yet I make them anyway.