I see voting as decentralized moderation, not as an expression of agreement or like or something.

Upvote means "I want people to see this" and downvote means "I don't want people to see this."

For me:

Agree = Up vote

Agree, but your comment was cringe = No vote

Agree, but you presented it in an ultra-cringy way that actually weakens the point = Down vote

Disagree = No vote

Disagree, but very good and valid point = Up vote

Disagree, and also cringe = Down vote

I think of votes as adding or decreasing visibility. Which is a little different than "I like this." An upvote means you think other people should see a post/comment.

So unsavory but important things still deserve an upvote imo. That doesn't mean you like the thing being discussed.

Upvotes and Downotes mean whatever you want them to mean.

You are supposed to upvote things that:

• you like
• belong in the community it's posted in
• upvoting favors it for the algorithm, ranking it higher and making it stay longer. If you want others to see the stuff, you upvote.

With comments, you are supposed to upvote things that contribute to the discussion, even if you disagree with it, but in practice people often just upvote what they like and agree with and downvote what they don't agree with and there is pretty much nothing anyone can do to change that. So do what you think is right.

I upvote anything that passes the bar of "This content is a positive addition to Lemmy" + my margin for laziness.

I downvote anything I consider pure garbage.

If I like it, up vote.

If I am ambivalent but like that they are contributing in a constructive or humorous way that is a net positive, up vote even if I don't care for it or agree with it.

If it has misinformation, racism/sexism/etc., is over the top hostile without justification, or is otherwise a net negative to discussion then down vote.

If I'm not sure if it is being sarcastic I tend to not vote. Poe's Law is like Brannigan's law, hard and fast.

I vote up if I think it adds value to the discussion or should be seen more. When I down vote it's because I feel is not adding value or off topic.

I miss the way Slashdot votes worked, where there are separate counts for each sentiment like agree/disagree, insightful, funny, etc. Maybe reaction emojis are the modern version of that?

As usual they are the like and dislike buttons. People will cope but when you ask them to explain how they use them they'll say "I use the upvote button for (thing that they like) and the downvote button for (thing that they dislike)"

Okay. It has been decided. We need more buttons than just Up/Down 🥲