StumbleUpon Guilt

For those of you who use StumbleUpon regularly, do you encounter a situation where a website is very nice, very well made, or has a very good purpose, BUT does not inspire or interest you in any way?

Perhaps it’s some very well done art or photography, or a worthy local cause in a foreign country, or something which you support but don’t necessarily want to see more sites about.

Do you thumb it up or down? You don’t want to thumb it down because it’s not something poor quality. But you don’t want to thumb it up because you don’t see it as relevant to your interests and don’t want more sites like that showing up.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding the way StumbleUpon works and the influence of thumbs up/down, but sometimes the little voice in my head says, “Go ahead! Just thumb it down. No one will notice. This highly efficient humanitarian charity isn’t even on your continent!”


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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 2:07 am under: Random Thoughts.
4 Responses to StumbleUpon Guilt
  • 1
    Roman @ FinancialJesus.com
    May 23rd, 2008 00:00

    I won’t give it a thumbs up nor a thumbs down. I’ll just stumble to the next site.
    To tell the truth I only thumb something up or down when I really like or hate it

  • 2
    Jem
    June 12th, 2008 12:23

    I find it disappointing when people gratuitously thumb things down for no reason. In theory it’s not necessarily a reflection of the page and more a reflection of the user’s opinion, but I only ever use it if the page is offensive or inaccurate. I wonder if that’s classed as passive aggressive stumbleupon use? Hehe.

  • 3
    kulpreet singh
    June 13th, 2008 11:46

    @Roman - thanks for your comment! I kind of use the same method but sometimes sites I don’t thumb down show up again :\

    @Jem - thanks for your comment! I see your point of view. That is why I wrote this post - you might not like something for your StumbleUpon browsing, but that doesn’t make it a bad site overall. In my opinion there should be a third option: Nice, but not for me.

  • 4
    Sara
    June 24th, 2008 06:32

    I tend to only thumb up when I really enjoy something. Otherwise, I just move on. Often, a site just isn’t relevant to what I’m looking for or enjoy. I don’t want to thumb someone down just because SU isn’t totally in tune with my mood. I think I’ve only thumbed down one thing in months! Great topic–I’d love to hear more about SU etiquette.

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