Where’s the source of confusion? You make a useful, meaningful and relevant comment, and it’s upvoted because people like that sort of comment. You then make a useless and wanky comment obsessing about how other people use their votes, and we downvote it, because people don’t like that sort of comment.
Where’s the confusion? Two different comments, of different quality, receive different kind of votes.
I have in the past had exchanges that could have been a lot more useful without the karma, which leads to needless status posturing when people disagree. I was trying to kind of defuse that dynamic. Also, highly-upvoted critical comments hurt people’s feelings, and I don’t like hurt feelings. Sorry if I came off as wanky or obsessive.
I think probably the actual reason was that people like pedanterrific were using my self-reply as karma balance, though.
Once again, to make it crystal clear: Not everyone downvoted the second comment for “karma balance”. I downvoted it, even though I had NOT upvoted the first comment, and I did so explicitly NOT for karma balance. I downvoted the second comment in order to express my disapproval for the second comment, taken alone, by itself, independently, and I chose to do that without interest in or consideration of the karma points in any other comment, by you or anyone else.
And since I don’t accept instruction from people on how to vote for them, your suggestion to downvote the first comment, were also summarily ignored. I downvoted the comment I wanted to downvote, because I disapproved of it, not the one you were instructing me to downvote—and which I didn’t disapprove of.
I’m not sure whether I accomplished what I was trying to accomplish or not. I mean, the “Here, take some of my status” part obviously worked, just not quite how I was planning. Getting downvoted when I ask to get downvoted doesn’t exactly break my heart, either, of course. I seem to have provoked some hostility from a few people, which is rarely a goal I pursue, but I’d rather people be mad because I’m “telling them how to vote” than because a substantive disagreement is going poorly. I guess next time I’ll look for a less annoying way of doing it.
By the way, feel free to downvote or upvote this, and all my other comments, according to your judgment of their merits, or any other algorithm you wish to employ, including but not limited to: upvoting comments you agree with, downvoting comments you disagree with, downvoting all my comments, upvoting all my comments, alternately downvoting and upvoting my comments, upvoting only comments you disagree with in an interesting way, downvoting comments that give you the megrims, upvoting comments that use silly words, and changing the sign of all your votes at random intervals. The part of me I identify with cares about karma only to the degree it makes discourse better or worse, and tries to say worthwhile things regardless of point value. The rest of me can stand a good smacking around.
By the way, feel free to downvote or upvote this, and all my other comments, according to your judgment of their merits, or any other algorithm you wish to employ, including but not limited to: upvoting comments you agree with, downvoting comments you disagree with, downvoting all my comments, upvoting all my comments, alternately downvoting and upvoting my comments, upvoting only comments you disagree with in an interesting way, downvoting comments that give you the megrims, upvoting comments that use silly words, and changing the sign of all your votes at random intervals.
oh nooo, now I can’t do any of those things because I am sooo contrarian
Where’s the source of confusion? You make a useful, meaningful and relevant comment, and it’s upvoted because people like that sort of comment. You then make a useless and wanky comment obsessing about how other people use their votes, and we downvote it, because people don’t like that sort of comment.
Where’s the confusion? Two different comments, of different quality, receive different kind of votes.
I have in the past had exchanges that could have been a lot more useful without the karma, which leads to needless status posturing when people disagree. I was trying to kind of defuse that dynamic. Also, highly-upvoted critical comments hurt people’s feelings, and I don’t like hurt feelings. Sorry if I came off as wanky or obsessive.
I think probably the actual reason was that people like pedanterrific were using my self-reply as karma balance, though.
Once again, to make it crystal clear: Not everyone downvoted the second comment for “karma balance”. I downvoted it, even though I had NOT upvoted the first comment, and I did so explicitly NOT for karma balance. I downvoted the second comment in order to express my disapproval for the second comment, taken alone, by itself, independently, and I chose to do that without interest in or consideration of the karma points in any other comment, by you or anyone else.
And since I don’t accept instruction from people on how to vote for them, your suggestion to downvote the first comment, were also summarily ignored. I downvoted the comment I wanted to downvote, because I disapproved of it, not the one you were instructing me to downvote—and which I didn’t disapprove of.
I, uh… yeah, you’ve made that perfectly clear.
I’m not sure whether I accomplished what I was trying to accomplish or not. I mean, the “Here, take some of my status” part obviously worked, just not quite how I was planning. Getting downvoted when I ask to get downvoted doesn’t exactly break my heart, either, of course. I seem to have provoked some hostility from a few people, which is rarely a goal I pursue, but I’d rather people be mad because I’m “telling them how to vote” than because a substantive disagreement is going poorly. I guess next time I’ll look for a less annoying way of doing it.
By the way, feel free to downvote or upvote this, and all my other comments, according to your judgment of their merits, or any other algorithm you wish to employ, including but not limited to: upvoting comments you agree with, downvoting comments you disagree with, downvoting all my comments, upvoting all my comments, alternately downvoting and upvoting my comments, upvoting only comments you disagree with in an interesting way, downvoting comments that give you the megrims, upvoting comments that use silly words, and changing the sign of all your votes at random intervals. The part of me I identify with cares about karma only to the degree it makes discourse better or worse, and tries to say worthwhile things regardless of point value. The rest of me can stand a good smacking around.
oh nooo, now I can’t do any of those things because I am sooo contrarian