Fediverse memes

Spot on. Upvotes/downvotes are for voting on the quality of comment only in theory. In practice, they are agree/disagree buttons.

This post does not present the requisite context, which is that this community is a bit special in comparison to others. Read the sidebar text where it explains more how the mod wants people to use it differently. On Reddit there were some others like that, e.g. CMV, and had different-styled icons to help people realize that - before the days where people just expected every single sub to function identically so that they could bother not reading the sub rules before posting or commenting in it.

e.g.:

Do not downvote posts if you think they deserved it. Use the comment votes (see below) for that.

It's a tool for curating the content, upvote posts you want people to see, and downvote those you think should be hidden. So stuff that's irrelevant, factually incorrect, pointless, inflammatory etc.

Thinking that something should be hidden just because you disagree with it is problematic.

In addition to what others said, in comments the down vote is meant to be used on comments that don't further discussion in good faith.

I used to subscribe to that idea, but I've since changed my mind. If the far majority use upvotes to mean agreement, then me upvoting a controversial, but well structured, opinion will likely be viewed as agreement as well.

It's a nice idea to think the voting system is meant to promote discussion, instead of homogenise opinions in a community.

when a post doesn't fit the community purpose or is generally inappropriate

Ok but even if its for something else everyone else is still using it for that. And on another note, why shouldnt i use it to show disapproval?

However you want to use it.

I actually think up- and downvotes are inherently asymmetrical in this respect.

Upvoting things you agree with is fine and a main use of the function. Why then is downvoting things you disagree with wrong? Because the purpose of voting is visibility, you upvote things you want people to see, like arguments you agree with, and downvote those you don't think people should see.

Now if you believe in having an open discussion you don't want to suppress posts just because you disagree with them. Disagreeing is fine, so downvoting is reserved for posts that detract from the conversation.

That's what it should be, a "booo!" for lazy and willfully ignorant comments.

In practice most people downvote any take they disagree with, no matter if it was expressed well, written respectfully, and contributes to the conversation.

How I know?

Fine, I'll do it, how ya know?

I downvote anyone complaining about downvote out of principle.

Mine wasn't.

Communities trying to have alternate meanings for upvotes/downvotes must keep in mind that people scrolling posts across communities won't generally notice the community and if they do they won't read the rules and will vote however they want. Trying to force them to follow some silly community specific process is tilting at windmills and bitching about it is embarrassing.

I think it's a nice sentiment, but you can't change emergent behavior just by saying "this is wrong"

aren't they the instance admin themselves?