The real risk is when certain forms of comment (approval, disapproval) are discouraged, because the community’s standards of “quality” are skewed.
Agreed. I strongly feel that comments of a few words expressing thanks, agreement, apology, sympathy, approval, acknowledgement, etc. should simply hover at zero. Such remarks are part of the native architecture by which we communicate, and I think we lose something if we discourage them.
I agree with the descriptive content of what you wrote, but not the normative content. I agree that we do lose something if we discourage these sorts of comments. However, short comments that don’t add anything to the discussion (like the ones you mention) do add a significant amount to what gets displayed on the screen. If someone is reading this with a screen reader, a text browser, an iphone, or even just a small laptop or old, low-res display, then they will have to wade through “MBlume 22 April 2009 07:55:59AM* 8 points [-] Thanks—I agree. Vote up | Vote down | Permalink | Parent | Report | Reply”, for no good reason. Much better to discourage this sort of noise that adds nothing to the pursuit of rationality as such.
Agreed. I strongly feel that comments of a few words expressing thanks, agreement, apology, sympathy, approval, acknowledgement, etc. should simply hover at zero. Such remarks are part of the native architecture by which we communicate, and I think we lose something if we discourage them.
I agree with the descriptive content of what you wrote, but not the normative content. I agree that we do lose something if we discourage these sorts of comments. However, short comments that don’t add anything to the discussion (like the ones you mention) do add a significant amount to what gets displayed on the screen. If someone is reading this with a screen reader, a text browser, an iphone, or even just a small laptop or old, low-res display, then they will have to wade through “MBlume 22 April 2009 07:55:59AM* 8 points [-] Thanks—I agree. Vote up | Vote down | Permalink | Parent | Report | Reply”, for no good reason. Much better to discourage this sort of noise that adds nothing to the pursuit of rationality as such.