Radovic

I posted when this instance first started and there was nearly nothing.

Why did you stop?

Well I'm not going to post anything, so you're not going to decide whether it gets exposure or not. So that's that sorted.

No, it's you who aren't entitled to content.

If I have to make an effort to do something it has to be rewarded. Else why do it?

You don't wake up in the morning and whack yourself in the face with a teaspoon, do you? It wouldn't happen because there would be no reward in it. Except for that one person in 100,000.

So without me, and people like me*, you ain't up or downvoting anything because no on is posting.

*Unless you want to leave the posting to the bots...

I don't like downvotes. I post stuff here, if it gets downvoted it can fail and go below the level of visibility that garners it more votes. People will downvote for any reason that comes into their heads. It's almost like random noise but it messes with my post's path to its intended audience.

I don't see what possible motivation I would have to keep posting when that is happening.

OK, thank you.

OK so the downvotes were turned on and I didn't know about it and I checked in on that post, it had gone to minus one. And that felt a little bit shit.

Next thing I have the thought, "Oh I had better go back to not making my titles funny, they don't like that."

Then I had the, "Wait, why am I even doing this?" moment.

So that's the question I am asking in this conversation. Why should I get to feel a little bit shit every time I do a particular thing? And the answer is: I shouldn't do that thing, isn't it?

Listen, you're going to do what you want and so am I. And that's fair enough.

Why should I get any at all?

You ain't paying me, it's rare that people leave a comment thanking me, although some users very kindly have. So all that's left is the pleasure of seeing a post do well. Unfortunately, because of the mechanics of the board if a post doesn't do well in the early part of the day or is rushed off the front page by a rush of content then it rarely becomes visible to the Americans when they come online.

And returning to the last post standing, OK it's not a popular post which I would know if the score was 4. But four people liked it. It bought a very small but significant amount of pleasure to their visit here. Why should it be necessary for people to downvote it? I already know that they are part of the overwhelming majority of people that didn't upvote it.

Last point: go look at the one comment on that post. I haven't had a comment like that before. But it happened the day the downvotes got turned on.

If you look at my profile, you can see one picture that I decided to leave. It attracted, so far, 4 upvotes and three downvotes. The net score is 1, which is the same as if I hadn't bothered posting it. Easier not to bother.

I'm on strike until they get turned off again or the end of time, whichever is sooner.