No Stupid Questions

Yes, the internet is filled with weirdos - next question

Yeah. I did it though. Wish I hadn't but shitty pattern seeking brain was like "but what if something interesting happens? What if you have an arch enemy"

No such luck, but it turns out there's a few accounts who just downvote everything indiscriminately and that's a little funny

I'll look at some users who post a ridiculous take on something. I mostly look to see if they are just a shitty troll or if it was a one off and decide if I want to block them. I don't look through there posts for context, just the raw vote numbers. If someone is majority negative on their posts, then they don't need to show up in my feed.

There are a handful of other users on here who I see frequently that I don't agree with on a lot of things, and the community agrees with me based on votes, but those users also make good comments that are beneficial to some conversations and sometimes I learn something new. I'll put up with the bad for the good.

You should immediately block everyone who disagrees with you. Then all of your BS will be eternally enabled and you'll never be wrong about anything.

It's public to stop vote manipulation and brigading. When you can see that a ton of up/downvotes on a post all come from 37 alts of the same user, it makes it easier to ban those people.

It's creepy when they questionably ascribe motivations to how someone has voted and make accusations and threats based on it, act like a downvote is a personal attack, demand people vote a certain way to demonstrate ideological loyalty, or otherwise be really weird about it. If they're not doing that, it is probably fine imo.

For some people, that's all they have. Vote like everyone can see and give no shits about lurkers being vexed.

Yes, those people are creepy.

I think if you obsess over ‘figuring out’ the person, it can be weird.

I have definitely checked post history and upvotes on some users just to get context for their comments. It has saved me wasting time trying to have a discussion with someone who only seems to ever look for fights.

Creepy? Probably. Pathetic? Absolutely.

Personally not how I’d spend my energy. If someone’s bothering me I block.

More sad than creepy IMO

I blame Reddit

Where can I even see post votes?

How do you even see who down votes?

Usually, yes, it's weird. One day a while back, a lot of my recent comments were all getting one downvote, and I was curious. Apparently one person was mad at something I said and went through my comment history to downvote things. There are times where it's somewhat useful to view, but obsessing over it is strange.

I dunno. It's how the platform was designed. Lemmy was designed to imitate Reddit but with some changes. Looking back at a Redditor's post history was always controversial. Vote history just adds a new layer to that.

I got banned from a bunch of AI comms I've never visited; I can only guess because I'm a member of "Fuck AI". Truth is, I'm curiously cautious, or cautiously curious, I'm not sure. I'm not too big on AI, but neither am I vehemently against it (besides its affect on the gaming industry). I think the ban was just a knee-jerk reaction and probably a bit uncalled for, but again, the platform has the feature for a reason.

I always thought I had the sanest take on Reddit when it came to viewing post history. If someone was vitriolic, I'd check their history to see if this is how they are all the time or if they're having a bad day. If the former, I might downvote/block... if the latter, I might give it a few days and reply, hoping they'd be in a better mood then.

I've never looked at another user's vote history. It's not really any of my business; I don't see a real benefit for me to do so.

It's certainly a waste of time.

"I went through your post history and so now I feel confident stereotyping you" is a borderline temp ban red flag, imo. It definitely indicates that the person is tilted hard enough, for one reason or another, to not take the discussion rationally and maybe need a break. If your community excludes certain harmful opinions then a post history check can be helpful for moderation, but using it to ad hominem someone in a discussion forum where all the important information should be in the discussion is flame war tactics and can lead to stalking.

Usually doesn't happen here to the degree it happens on reddit, but literally this week I had someone do it to try and claim that I hate cars because I post in /c/fuckcars@lemmy.world, even though I myself own two cars. Indeed, it was a stupid topic that dependably gets some people irrationally incensed, which primed this guy to try and make it personal.

I used to ban people who repeatedly downvoted content on my conservative community but the last couple months I’ve stopped doing that and it hasn’t changed the vibe of the community at all.

I only do that with accounts that are sus, like posting propaganda, ads, etc. To check if it is a bot and to report it.

Sometimes I'll check post and comment history if something seems a little off. For example, does this account show patterns you might see in a troll or bot?

Looking at votes though? That never even occurred to me, and even know I don't see what the point would be.