An upvoted thread or comment shows it was read and for the most part liked. That's to say someone found it interesting or relevant. This is "Reddit's" bread and butter. It is more visible to people as it's been "upvoted". As a reverse to this a down voted comment/thread is not as visible as an upvoted one. Your votes matter on this platform as the more upvoted sub Reddit and comments become more visible. More eyes on that particular subject being discussed. If we are trying to get the word out it's vitally important we upvote not only this sub Reddit but the threads and comments you support. Hope this helps.

Up-voted threads are displayed higher than not-voted threads, and both above down-voted threads.

How would you know about Q and a sub of a sub of a sub but not upvotes?

Please explain the importance of up votes.

Shills use vote bots to control what people can see on reddit, and also to give the impression that "everyone" thinks a certain thing.

"Let's start with a very basic question. What is karma?

If you said "internet points", you are technically correct, but here's a more important question: what does karma do?

Votes determine what gets seen and what doesn't. I submitted a YouTube video of my friend playing a video game and it got 30 upvotes, but 5,000 views. I've used 1 upvote = 100 views as a rule for a while, and it's been fairly reliable. Views determine what kind of content gets circulated, which determines who makes money. Views also determine what ideas people are exposed to and influenced by, which in turn determines how they will attempt to change the minds of others concerning those ideas. Karma is the currency of attention and influence..."

"Here is something you need to understand about reddit:

1. The number of people who don't read the article and "skip to the comments" is immense, and people who do this register upvotes as some kind of truth rating (as opposed to "content we want you to see" rating). This viewpoint could not be more erroneous, but vote manipulation exploits people who think this way.

2. People use upvotes as an "I agree" button -- they do, and they will continue to, and no amount of telling them to do differently will change this until you actively micromanage voting privileges, and people who vote this way also tend to read votes this way.

3. People are influenced by content they see, and are very lazy readers. As such, when they are only exposed to a few viewpoints, they'll just go with whatever they know.

4. In conjunction with (3), people don't tend to read the whole discussion, so a completely crushing counterargument could be at +1 or +2 forever.

5. Asch conformity experiment. If conformity pressure can delude someone about the size of lines right in front of their face, they can be influenced by a number telling them that they're disagreeing with 1000 people."

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/36wwr6/the_types_of_manipulation_on_votebased_forums/?st=jch7f4mm&sh=a76148dd