Why do I always automatically upvote my own posts?

the Anarchit3cht·Apr 19, 2014·1 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 GraffApr 19, 20142 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.

the Anarchit3chtApr 20, 20141 votes

I suppose that makes since, however shouldn't it naturally be presumed that we all agree with our own posts? Otherwise, why post them? I found out that it does have to do with the technical side. Posts are sorted by default in the "Hot" method which is determined by the number of upvotes they have. The more upvotes it has, the higher it appears on the list. Your automatic +1 causes it to appear on the first page--probably due to the fact that otherwise, people who did take the time to upvote their post would push the posts of those who do not off the first page, thus it is automatic.

Hyrum GraffApr 20, 20141 votes

I think it's presumed that you agree with your own posts, yes, but it's not immediately apparent when you're just glancing at the number of upvotes.