I know MediaBiasFactCheck is not a be-all-end-all to truth/bias in media, but I find it to be a useful resource.

It makes sense to downvote it in posts that have great discussion – let the content rise up so people can have discussions with humans, sure.

But sometimes I see it getting downvoted when it’s the only comment there. Which does nothing, unless a reader has rules that automatically hide downvoted comments (but a reader would be able to expand the comment anyways…so really no difference).

What’s the point of downvoting? My only guess is that there’s people who are salty about something it said about some source they like. Yet I don’t see anyone providing an alternative to MediaBiasFactCheck…

  • HottieAutie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    5 months ago

    “Oh, this new post already has a comment, let’s check it out! … Dang it!”

    Downvoting doesn’t address this. You can try hiding bots tho.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Downvoting definitely makes your opinion on it known though. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here reading all this.

      • otp@sh.itjust.worksOP
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        5 months ago

        I don’t think it does. People are explaining all kinds of different reasons why they downvote the bot, so there’s no cohesive reason why it gets downvoted.

        In fact, a fair number of people don’t even seem to understand what the bot actually does…lol

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          I think that’s exactly what it does. It doesn’t matter why they don’t like having it around. They don’t like having it around. And that feedback is important.

          • otp@sh.itjust.worksOP
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            5 months ago

            People downvote it as a placement strategy.

            People downvote it not because it makes bad comments, but because they don’t realize they could block a bot.

            You downvote a comment because you don’t like what that user said, not because you never want to see any of their comment ever again.

            Some people downvote it because they know how Lemmy works and want to find MBFCbot at the bottom of a post’s comments. Other people downvote it because they don’t get how Lemmy works and don’t realize they could block it.

            …and yet both of them often leave the MBFCbot as the top comment, lol