I have heard a few different strategies for this. For example “Upvote everything, even if you disagree with it, if it contributes to discussion”. But my concern with this strategy is that it means the first posted comments just get upvoted the highest regardless of their quality relative to other comments (as all comments which contribute to discussion get upvoted).
So, my questions for lemmy:
- How do you hand out upvotes and why?
- If somebody could leave you a tip on your comment or post if they liked it (3c, $1, whatever), would you be interested in that functionality? Nostr has this and I find it pretty fun. I would hand out tips here but there is no functionality for it.
I upvote posts or comments that teach me about something I didn’t know before. Anything that opens a new door for me to gain new knowledge or experiences or a novel approach to life.
I’ll also upvote when someone can put something difficult to express into words clearly.
Both of those add value to my life, and the least I can do is give a click and some positive feedback.
As for leaving a tip, if you mean as in real money, nah, even though it’s probably be worth it to me here. Monetizing stuff is a race to the bottom to churn out cheap content for clicks. Too many places doing that already.
If you mean more of an intangible value for the content provided, more like the 1-5 scale from Slashdot as opposed to just an up or down vote, there could be use in that, but nothing life changing.