Why do I always automatically upvote my own posts?

the Anarchit3cht·4/19/2014, 7:40:37 PM·1 votes·175 views

Whenever I post anything it automatically comes with an Upvote from myself. Is this normal behavior? Is there anyway to disable it or change it apart from manually clicking the arrows myself? I say this because the upvotes should be a reflection of how OTHER people view my posts, not myself.

3 Comments

Hyrum Graff4/19/2014, 9:52:07 PM2 votes

I have no clue, but my best guess is that:

It has to do with the technical side of the way, and
Upvotes (IMO) are a reflection of how the COMMUNITY views your posts. Presumably you view your post positively, and you are part of the community, hence your post is upvoted. It may not makes sense immediately, but think of it this way: You're having a debate with 5 other people over a decision you're going to vote for, and you say your point of view. 2 take your side, and 3 disagree with you. Now the matter comes to a vote. The final vote won't be 3 to 2, it'll be 3 to 3. I think thats the rationale behind the upvote. From the perspective of someone else looking at the post later, the upvote should be a quick appraisal of how the community views your post. A vote of 0 should mean that the community is split, not that the community has one more person who agrees with it than disagrees with it.