I was not describing bulk downvoting that could reasonably be called “karmassassination” or anything like that. This is limited to one subthread. The point is that you’re downvoting someone twice for the same thing for no better reason than that it’s across two posts. It discourages people from answering replies to their posts (and rewards editing answers into the original post [which doesn’t notify the person you’re responding to] or simply not engaging in discussion), which stifles discussion, because then the downvoter (who is not engaging in discussion to explain why they do not like the comments) has an extra opportunity to “legitimately” strike again, even though the downvotes are individually legitimate under the “want to have less posts like this one” theory of why people vote.
tl;dr:
On the other hand, voting on multiple comments in a thread, either because one wishes to see more/fewer threads of that sort, or because one genuinely considers each one to be individually entitled to the vote, is considered perfectly acceptable.
What I am suggesting is that it is considered “perfectly acceptable” in part because people have not fully considered this effect.
Maybe if the votes were allowed but the karma effect reduced?
P.S.
“learn some global lesson like “don’t ever respond to requests for clarification” even if the punisher intended a more narrow lesson like “don’t make comments like this one while responding to requests for clarification”.”
The point is that the punishment is for failing to change your mind. If you continue the discussion with anything but a full retraction, it’s likely that whatever the silent downvoter disliked is not fixed. So, no, I won’t be replying to requests for clarification—people can accept the inconvenience of watching the original post for additions as a cost of the current system.
And it is a global lesson: fewer posts on a topic unpopular enough to draw downvotes always means fewer downvotes, because if you stick to one post the downvoters can’t hit you twice while remaining within the “downvoting rules”.
I don’t see how that’s relevant, I’m talking about responses to requests for clarification. Controlled for original posts that had a negative score—any downvotes that were due to disagreement with someone’s position are obviously unlikely to change with clarification, and the response will get another downvote.
any downvotes that were due to disagreement with someone’s position are obviously unlikely to change with clarification, and the response will get another downvote
You continue to imply that voting behavior is entirely a function of whether voters agree with the commenter’s position. This continues to not match my experience.
It’s certainly possible that you’re correct and that I’m drawing the wrong lesson from my experience, of course.
My assumption is that disagreement is one of several reasons that people downvote, and that people are more likely to volunteer explanations (especially to new users) for the other reasons than for disagreement. Therefore, I assumed that the downvotes I got with no explanation were for disagreement. The one person who provided an alternate theory of why I was getting downvoted denied being one of the downvoters, and when I took his advice and clarified something from an earlier post, the new comment was also downvoted.
When I said I had observed a spoiler being stated “numerous” times in the thread, as evidence that the spoiler policy wasn’t preventing this effectively, someone replied asking for a list of links to specific comments; I replied with nine, and that post was downvoted three times.
I was not describing bulk downvoting that could reasonably be called “karmassassination” or anything like that. This is limited to one subthread. The point is that you’re downvoting someone twice for the same thing for no better reason than that it’s across two posts. It discourages people from answering replies to their posts (and rewards editing answers into the original post [which doesn’t notify the person you’re responding to] or simply not engaging in discussion), which stifles discussion, because then the downvoter (who is not engaging in discussion to explain why they do not like the comments) has an extra opportunity to “legitimately” strike again, even though the downvotes are individually legitimate under the “want to have less posts like this one” theory of why people vote.
tl;dr:
What I am suggesting is that it is considered “perfectly acceptable” in part because people have not fully considered this effect.
Maybe if the votes were allowed but the karma effect reduced?
P.S.
“learn some global lesson like “don’t ever respond to requests for clarification” even if the punisher intended a more narrow lesson like “don’t make comments like this one while responding to requests for clarification”.”
The point is that the punishment is for failing to change your mind. If you continue the discussion with anything but a full retraction, it’s likely that whatever the silent downvoter disliked is not fixed. So, no, I won’t be replying to requests for clarification—people can accept the inconvenience of watching the original post for additions as a cost of the current system.
And it is a global lesson: fewer posts on a topic unpopular enough to draw downvotes always means fewer downvotes, because if you stick to one post the downvoters can’t hit you twice while remaining within the “downvoting rules”.
That’s inconsistent with my experience here.
You are, of course, free to do that.
Ditto.
Requests for clarification, in particular, are often upvoted on net after a few days.
Except, in some cases, when they are blatantly passive aggressive requests.
I don’t see how that’s relevant, I’m talking about responses to requests for clarification. Controlled for original posts that had a negative score—any downvotes that were due to disagreement with someone’s position are obviously unlikely to change with clarification, and the response will get another downvote.
You continue to imply that voting behavior is entirely a function of whether voters agree with the commenter’s position. This continues to not match my experience.
It’s certainly possible that you’re correct and that I’m drawing the wrong lesson from my experience, of course.
It isn’t obvious, though.
My assumption is that disagreement is one of several reasons that people downvote, and that people are more likely to volunteer explanations (especially to new users) for the other reasons than for disagreement. Therefore, I assumed that the downvotes I got with no explanation were for disagreement. The one person who provided an alternate theory of why I was getting downvoted denied being one of the downvoters, and when I took his advice and clarified something from an earlier post, the new comment was also downvoted.
When I said I had observed a spoiler being stated “numerous” times in the thread, as evidence that the spoiler policy wasn’t preventing this effectively, someone replied asking for a list of links to specific comments; I replied with nine, and that post was downvoted three times.
I agree with this
I suppose this is possible, but I doubt the size of the effect is significant.
Aha—I’d missed that bit.
Sure, though I usually avoid downvoting for disagreement, and I’ve gotten the impression that’s still a norm around here.
ETA: And actually countered somewhat by the tendency of several frequent users to upvote for disagreement.