Almost anything else or nonexistent. Maybe a way of filtering lazy, unhelpful, or uncivil comments. Downvotes being a disagree button just seems blatantly toxic. Expressing disagreements calls for using actual words.

[–] dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Not sure about that last bit. Do you know how many people are wrong on the Internet? Lemmy isn't my job, yo: I can't engage in a dialogue with with them all.

[–] DarkNightoftheSoul@mander.xyz 3 points 1 day ago

then dont engage with them. let someone else do it: do you know how many people are on the internet?

[–] urheber@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

isnt that just disagreeing with the comment?

[–] DarkNightoftheSoul@mander.xyz 3 points 1 day ago

no. you might agree with someone saying, "this" but its lazy. "just google it" isnt helpful though you might agree with the sentiment. and someone might be making an argument you agree with, but being toxic and vitriolic. you should downvote those even if you may agree with them. it was called upvote and downvote because the feature would cause the comment to move up or down the chain to the top of the post or to be buried. disagreement downvotes are a fundamental misunderstanding and/or abuse of the system, thank you for coming to my ted talk.