What’s your purpose in this? Is it a signal to the author (“this is … ok. I don’t want to see more, nor less, of things like this”)? To other readers (“this is worth your time if you read about half of LessWrong”)? I don’t think either of those are served by a random vote. They MIGHT be served by a react, or by just not voting.
I think signal to author is served imperfectly by a random vote, in expectation. If you post two mediocre comments and updated twice on how much people on LW wanted to see these kinds of comments based on my “neutral” vote, that should cancel out. And I expect to see most people on LW at least a couple times that the karma mostly balances out within months.
The number of voters is a signal to other readers, having more people voting more often improves this signal. A react cannot replace this because you cannot know if someone both voted and reacted.
What’s your purpose in this? Is it a signal to the author (“this is … ok. I don’t want to see more, nor less, of things like this”)? To other readers (“this is worth your time if you read about half of LessWrong”)? I don’t think either of those are served by a random vote. They MIGHT be served by a react, or by just not voting.
I think signal to author is served imperfectly by a random vote, in expectation. If you post two mediocre comments and updated twice on how much people on LW wanted to see these kinds of comments based on my “neutral” vote, that should cancel out. And I expect to see most people on LW at least a couple times that the karma mostly balances out within months.
The number of voters is a signal to other readers, having more people voting more often improves this signal. A react cannot replace this because you cannot know if someone both voted and reacted.