My personal upvote border:

• This is the best thing I've seen today
• Someone made a post/comment made in good faith that adds value to the community
• Someone replied to me in good faith, as far as I can tell

Neutral (no up/down-vote) border:

• Someone made a post/comment that I didn't think much about
• Someone replied to me, but was not in good faith and/or seem factually dubious

Downvote border (I rarely do that):

• Someone made a post/comment that is factually wrong
• Someone seems to be trolling, making an agenda, or doing something else nefarious

I think maybe because of the lack of a meaningful "karma" system, people on the fediverse seem to be much more upvote-happy... less so than the beans era, but still a lot more upvote-happy than just about any Reddit community I still follow

Upvotes for things I like or agree with.

A rarely downvote, but if I do it’s mostly because I think the poster is behaving badly and/or doesn’t contribute to the discussion in a good way.

I usually upvote for engagement and downvote for being a shithead.

I upvote this post and all of the comments in it (unless they're wrong)

I upvote every post and comment I reply to, and every reply to one of my posts or comments, cause I think the fact that we're communicating here is pretty neat.
Unless the reply really isn't neat at all, then I don't vote.
I downvote obvious trolls, ragebait, bad faith arguing and rule breaking.

I used to upvote anything I agree with or that is somewhat midly interesting, but then I realised that if I do that, then the truly good content gets drowned in a sea of upvotes.

(For example let's say I upvote a comment in a thread that I think it's really good and exceptional, but then I also upvote other comments that ya I kinda support even tho it's nothing exceptional. Then I'm drowning the exceptionally good comment.)

Because of that I now tend to limit my upvotes so when I actually vote they weight more.

As for downvotes I personally think they are rude, and usually try to only downvote when something is factually wrong or downright reactionary.

Instead I prefer to upvote comments disagreeing instead.

Sometimes I tend to upvote a comment when I think it was down voted unfairly.

And also down vote commercial posts of commercial products that I see as nothing but advertisement.

i mostly dont. unless someone is making asanine comment, or a smart ass. or if those comment because egregiously trolly, i will block as well.

I upvote cats/dogs/owls/other cute animals, memes i find funny, things i find impressive, people being nice, things i find interesting/informative

I cant downvote thanks to my instance

I don't really downvote. I try to be helpful, so if someone's just being rude, I typically just block them. Probably more efficient.

The default for Reddit was to hide posts with X downvotes, so people could manipulate that to hide posts they don't like. Lemmy doesn't do that by default, so there's no real utility. Also users can choose to sort by time and ignore vote counts (I do) so your downvotes literally don't do anything for those users. Thus, I just block people who go out of their way to be rude or offensive.

I upvote people who are helpful and/or kind. Otherwise, I don't interact with that system.

I seldom use it:

• I barely ever downvote and only stuff that is very hateful or really too angry and that somehow managed to pass through my filters.
• I may upvote content I find really useful/enriching in a discussion.
• I do not use up/downvote as a way to show I agree or disagree with whatever I vote on. If I disagree with a content and think it's worth saying it, I will write a comment.
• Related: I also don't care about being downvoted unless there is a comment accompanying it to explain the motivation/reasoning behind it. People are more than welcome to disagree with whatever I say and even to dislike me as a person, I'm fine with that, but if they really want to help me realize (and maybe admit) that there was an issue in what I said, a mere downvote won't cut it. They will need to put in some more work ;)

I click the arrows.

What I picked up from imgur is, I laugh,I upvote. No exceptions.

I update almost every post and comment I see. I only very rarely downvote on purpose but because my app lets me swipe to vote, sometimes I swipe incorrectly.

I wish it was just a "this post/comment is good for the community" for up and opposite for down, but people will always (en masse) default to their emotional reaction when presented something that hits them one way or another.

Happened on that other site, happens here. People just love slapping that downvote when angry or upvote when pleased. I guess they feel some small sense of control that way.

I'm guilty of it myself, too, sometimes.

But usually I forget to vote. I only remember to do it when the post is really good or really bad.

I just upvote things I like that I wanna see again. Although there are very few lemmy front-ends on PC that'll let me see what posts I upvoted so it don't really work out too well. So far I've only found photon and stability on that is questionable if I don't go to the upvoted page right away

Only on very rare scenarios so downvote bigotry or plain rudeness and upvote effort posts and such.

How do you personally use upvotes/downvotes?

well I usually use Voyager, so it's a sliding gesture with my thumb. I hardly ever bother clicking the actual button, the gesture is just much faster.

Upvote: Made me lol, thoughtful opinion or something I generally agree with.

Downvote: Pointless post, doesn't fit the comm, and/or lazy/overdone joke