I think the “mediocre” vote is really a vote on a post being noise. Instead of just “karma,” one could have four numbers: signal, noise, agree, disagree. You can only vote these numbers up, and you can only vote up one of the 4.
A post would then have two scores: a “signal to noise ratio” and a “agree/disagree” score, which would be a the agrees minus the disagrees. (And actually, the signal to noise ratio would not necessarily be treated as a ratio. Both signal and noise numbers will probably be displayed.)
A vote on agree/disagree would be treated as an implicit upvote on “signal” by the post visibility algorithm.
This would make the karma system harder to game. You can vote “noise” to try and censor a post you disagree with, but then you can’t also disagree with it.
Voted up because while this isn’t the first time this sort of thing has been proposed (and I might disagree with the “implicit upvote”), I think “signal” and “noise” are awesome names for that feature.
I think the “mediocre” vote is really a vote on a post being noise. Instead of just “karma,” one could have four numbers: signal, noise, agree, disagree. You can only vote these numbers up, and you can only vote up one of the 4.
A post would then have two scores: a “signal to noise ratio” and a “agree/disagree” score, which would be a the agrees minus the disagrees. (And actually, the signal to noise ratio would not necessarily be treated as a ratio. Both signal and noise numbers will probably be displayed.)
A vote on agree/disagree would be treated as an implicit upvote on “signal” by the post visibility algorithm.
This would make the karma system harder to game. You can vote “noise” to try and censor a post you disagree with, but then you can’t also disagree with it.
This is an old quality/agreement debate. My position is that agreement is irrelevant, only usefulness for improving your understanding of something you are interested in is. Communicate likelihood ratio, not posterior belief.
Voted up because while this isn’t the first time this sort of thing has been proposed (and I might disagree with the “implicit upvote”), I think “signal” and “noise” are awesome names for that feature.