Actually unpopular opinions are downvoted, so why bother?

I think the real issue is the all feed. For many folks on Lemmy, there are no communities, there are only community tags on an otherwise never-ending stream of flotsam scrolling by on the all feed. This makes it very hard to establish community norms in any case.

Downvoted posts should move to the top

Can a comm's name be changed? If we labeled it as something like 'popular misinformation' then people could post their unpopular positions by posting the popular position as title and then their reason for disagreeing in the body.

Title: Cheesecake is the best

Body: is misinformation because blah, blah, blah.

People who aren't paying attention will just upvote because they agree, showing it is a popular view, and those who pay attention to what the comm is will be able to follow the traditional voting rules for the position expressed in the body. It would align the voting schema to work together rather than in opposition.

Exactly.

It's the same for other communities also.
Have e.g. seen a lot of unexpected downvotes for legit dull posts on Dull Men's Club.

Would perhaps help if the community name would be displayed more prominently.

On the other hand, the community names sometimes don't mirror the description or content of the community.
So it's complicated...

Perhaps count votes from actual community members seperatly from the rest?

Good point, maybe better design could help address it.

I've not seen someone use such wrong words to describe part of the website they're on before. "channel" and "timeline"? What?

That's a nice take, but it feels like someone is heading to a trap to be on the stage for mockery - "WHY ARE YOU BOOING ME? IM RIGHT" . People who want that should find a community specifically related to supporting their beliefs, and usually can.

I think that people who post in Unpopular Opinions do so to get the sense "Ok, here is my opinion, but we can all respect each other even though I have it". Also applies to your examples. Would someone who posted "sandals are cute" not get downvoted if the circlejerk against it wasn't big enough?

If my take on what it should be is right, it's also a litmus test for how accepting the community is - imagine a post "Hitler was a great guy and did nothing wrong.“ except all the comments just basically say "That's unpopular, it is right to be unpopular, and you may be getting caught in bubbles of propaganda that don't allow you to see it because of reasons xyz". You get to correctly identify a Hitler supported, you correctly identify just about the most unpopular opinion you can have, and you also have direct communication to tell off the guy. I suppose that also makes this community a litmus test on Lemmy and how the community is like.

I thought unpopular opinion meant: „I feel a bit alone with my opinion on xyz, is there someone who shares this opinion?“

That's just "does anyone else . . . ?" type post. A classic unpopular opinion is like "milk in the bowl before cereal is superior".

And the ones that get upvoted are like "that sounds so weotng but youre not hurting anyone so fair play" like the milk before cereal example.

I agree, hence I've downvoted.

Yet you haven't posted even once. Are you so sure your experience, worries, and interest as the same as a person considering to post? My take on the people who post the most on Lemmy is pretty close to what it is in Reddit.

Similarly, I've read people encouraging voting as a way to say that the post benefits the conversation. Down vote trolls, posts without adequate backing of ideas or actual dangerous comments and upvote posts that contribute, even if you disagree, then disagree as a reply.

For example, in a post, "a hotdog is a sandwich", upvote a comment that says, "meat & bread = sandwich" then reply, "you are an idiot" (then expect a downvote because your comment doesn't contribute.

• Vote the opposite of the norm.

If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow 🩹

You are describing something else.

They still effect visibility under most post sorting options, lower scored things display lower. Matters in a minor way for scrolling through the subscribed feed.

Funny thing, there seems to have been a multimillion industry built on caring about upvotes on the platforms people tell me it doesn't matter. I agree with you, but largely because of the temporal irrelevance of Lemmy at the moment. There are plenty of accounts who have months in between comments and yet upvote or downvote regularly, so I can only assume it matters to them. Thank you, I try not to fall into the rot of popularisms.

Sounds like you are just twisting the definition of opinion to justify this behavior. Objectively, it is independent of actual objective fact, it is by it's very nature the complete opposite, subjective. A child can have the opinion that Santa Claus exists a Christian can have the opinion that god exists, an investor can have an opinion of future events that cannot possibly be related to objective truth yet. Words can have multiple meanings, but even ignoring the ones that agree with me, I can't find any that agree with yours except yours.

If that's what you are doing, then I have more respect for the people who go "lol lets see what opinion they post now", if only because one has more a shared reality to it.

Your argument only apply to downvotes - I'm curious, any opinion about the upvotes of unconventional but otherwise popular opinions?

An entire industry's worth of engagement algorithms.

honestly I would prefer community voting not even be a thing in the federation but communities like this it actually makes sense if you could just have everyone understand how its supposed to be done.

no, you're wrong

Luckily those arrows don't matter here.

But they do.

Many forms of display ranking are based on that.

For the Unpopular Opinion community that would e.g. mean that the best (so: unpopular) posts are shown further down, while the top posts are filled with stuff not fitting the community's purpose.

They may not matter, but I understand some platforms, like piefed, are trying to change this. If they don't matter, shouldn't the rules just say to look at downvotes to determine the really unpopular opinions?