in summer 2023, when I moved here from reddit, the lemmy instance beehaw.org was extremely divisive. they wanted to create a website according to certain rules rather than a free for all. some people were saying it would be the end of the threadiverse before it even began.

since that time, there have been various other intrinsic and extrinsic threats. I do not see much panicking about beehaw. did the threadiverse survive beehaw? or is this only a shell of what we might have had otherwise?

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[–] Blaze 1 points 10 months ago

No of course not but I subscribe to the original Reddiquette philosophy. Downvotes arne’t for disagreement. They were originally a form of user-moderation to stop spam. Unfortunately about a decade ago after the Digg exodus the users of Reddit forgot that original usage and so you’d end up being downvoted and not knowing why. It doesn’t foster debate or discussion. It’s a cheap way to snipe someone down without being responsible or engaging them.

Very true, and that's why I'm more and more inclined to use an instance without downvotes. With the report button available, downvotes just seem like a shortcut for hivemind.