No Stupid Questions

No, it's fucking weird for folks to do that. You're not sensitive, they are just insane and no well-adjusted person does that.

Creepy? Probably. Pathetic? Absolutely.

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.

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

Yes, the internet is filled with weirdos - next question

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.

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.

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.

Where can I even see post votes?

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

Who really cares? Everyone isn't going to have your option, if you really like it up vote it, if it pisses you off or something down vote it. Hell down vote the hell out of this post, it's fake internet points for fucks sake.

But yeah, it's weird as shit to have nothing else to do in your day/life and get so pissed at an opposing opinion that you scour through someone's history. Get a hobby or something.

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 depends. If someone is being very vague about describing a gripe, going back through their history helps get context into what they're complaining about.

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.

I blame Reddit

Have you seen the guy who calls everyone stalker sockpuppets, tags all the admins and starts harassing you with his own sockpuppets whenever he gets a downvote?

Yes, it's pretty pathetic actually.

Yes, those people are creepy.

More sad than creepy IMO

Without context? Yeah.

I downvote for lazy spelling, and there's no way to indicate that. I'll accept if I downvote a positive idea and in doing so make it seem like I disagree with the positive message instead of just the broken medium, but I'd rather not.

How do you even see who down votes?

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.