As I understand the Karma system, you’re supposed to upvote intelligent, methodical, readable and original articles, since the point of the Karma system is to provide evidence to other readers that the post (and poster) in question is interesting. That is, you’re not supposed to upvote based on whether you agree with the conclusions. The same goes for downvotes, obviously: you shouldn’t downvote articles or posts simply because you don’t like the conclusions.
Still, I think that happens quite a lot. I got four downvotes within a short time-span a few hours ago on this post and it’s comments (people who agreed with me were also were downvoted): http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/jo8/private_currency_to_generate_funds_for_effective/ Now I don’t claim that my post and comments are master-pieces by any means, but I don’t really see that they’re so sub-par from the first point of view as to deserve a stream of down-votes. My suggestion is that some people don’t like the conclusions and therefore downvote it.
I think people have a problem distinguishing these two things (in fact, I think it’s a universal human trait and that very few people are able to fight their bias against posts containing conclusions they don’t like successfully). If so, it might be a good idea to give two sorts of Karma: “conclusions-based Karma” and “argument-based Karma”. Personally, I think it is the argument-based downvotes that count and that I wouldn’t look so much at others’ conclusion-based Karma, but it might still be useful to have it so as to make it salient that the quality of an argument is distinct from whether you like the conclusion or not.
Another idea is to force people to give arguments for their votes. Of course you couldn’t do that with every vote but if someone has a very unusual voting pattern, I think it might be a good idea that that person would have to explain his or her votes.
My tentative opinion is nevertheless that the Karma system does more good than harm, but that it should be improved.
That is, you’re not supposed to upvote based on whether you agree with the conclusions. The same goes for downvotes, obviously: you shouldn’t downvote articles or posts simply because you don’t like the conclusions.
I’d guess you differ from a lot of LW here. I definitely disagree with what I’ve quoted...although I won’t downvote you for that!
It’s good to downvote comments that are flagrantly wrong or misleading, and to upvote cogent comments, and sometimes that’s going to amount to downvoting because I disagree, or upvoting because I agree. Sometimes the most efficient way to handle a crappy comment is to hit it with a downvote and move on, rather than getting bogged down in an argument.
As I understand the Karma system, you’re supposed to upvote intelligent, methodical, readable and original articles, since the point of the Karma system is to provide evidence to other readers that the post (and poster) in question is interesting. That is, you’re not supposed to upvote based on whether you agree with the conclusions. The same goes for downvotes, obviously: you shouldn’t downvote articles or posts simply because you don’t like the conclusions.
Still, I think that happens quite a lot. I got four downvotes within a short time-span a few hours ago on this post and it’s comments (people who agreed with me were also were downvoted): http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/jo8/private_currency_to_generate_funds_for_effective/ Now I don’t claim that my post and comments are master-pieces by any means, but I don’t really see that they’re so sub-par from the first point of view as to deserve a stream of down-votes. My suggestion is that some people don’t like the conclusions and therefore downvote it.
I think people have a problem distinguishing these two things (in fact, I think it’s a universal human trait and that very few people are able to fight their bias against posts containing conclusions they don’t like successfully). If so, it might be a good idea to give two sorts of Karma: “conclusions-based Karma” and “argument-based Karma”. Personally, I think it is the argument-based downvotes that count and that I wouldn’t look so much at others’ conclusion-based Karma, but it might still be useful to have it so as to make it salient that the quality of an argument is distinct from whether you like the conclusion or not.
Another idea is to force people to give arguments for their votes. Of course you couldn’t do that with every vote but if someone has a very unusual voting pattern, I think it might be a good idea that that person would have to explain his or her votes.
My tentative opinion is nevertheless that the Karma system does more good than harm, but that it should be improved.
I’d guess you differ from a lot of LW here. I definitely disagree with what I’ve quoted...although I won’t downvote you for that!
It’s good to downvote comments that are flagrantly wrong or misleading, and to upvote cogent comments, and sometimes that’s going to amount to downvoting because I disagree, or upvoting because I agree. Sometimes the most efficient way to handle a crappy comment is to hit it with a downvote and move on, rather than getting bogged down in an argument.