Respond to this anonymously if you want (with the Username/password account): what are some inappropriate reasons you’ve upvoted or downvoted something on Less Wrong?
There are some comments which I wouldn’t normally upvote or downvote, but if I think they’ve been upvoted or downvoted disproportionately to their value, I’ll try and redress the balance. For example, if someone asks a banal but well-meaning question and it gets downvoted, I’ll upvote it.
I consider this marginal rather than flat-out inappropriate, but I’ve upvoted posts to avoid paying a karma penalty for replying to them. Someone I’ve discussed this with withdraws the upvote (click on the boldface thumb to withdraw a karma point) after having commented.
I’ve mostly tried to avoid upvoting so far, and I’ve completely avoided downvoting.
My model for upvoting right now is:
If I’ve commented on a post, I should upvote it, because if it was good enough to comment on, then it was good enough to upvote.
If a post or comment is particularly well thought-out, well-reasoned, or otherwise showing an understandable mastery of the issue at hand, it’s worth considering upvoting it.
Don’t upvote unless I’m absolutely confident, because I don’t want to go skewing the statistics here, and I’m also pretty new at this.
My model for downvoting has been:
Don’t do it until you know why other people do it (hence this post).
I’ve also been trying to understand why posts get comments and up/downvotes, but the two don’t seem to correlate well. So are there different rules for upvoting comments versus posts?
Some good posts don’t get many comments, perhaps because they’ve covered the subject thoroughly
I think posts are more likely to get a lot of comments if they’re controversial or have the effect of encouraging people to talk about personal experience.
There’s always going to be a difference between “what criteria for downvoting would make everyone better off” and “what criteria do people actually use”. People will downvote to shut up opposing views, not because that’s a good reason to downvote, but because dinging someone the −1 karma for an opposing view is more effective than not doing so and nobody’s going to stop them.
I down vote posts I think are bad for the sites reputation / public image. I think people who like controversy or trolling privately benefit from such posts and externalize reputation all harms onto the site overall. I also think people in general benefit from a forum with good members and don’t factor in long term reputational effects. I use karma to help people internalize these better.
Respond to this anonymously if you want (with the Username/password account): what are some inappropriate reasons you’ve upvoted or downvoted something on Less Wrong?
There are some comments which I wouldn’t normally upvote or downvote, but if I think they’ve been upvoted or downvoted disproportionately to their value, I’ll try and redress the balance. For example, if someone asks a banal but well-meaning question and it gets downvoted, I’ll upvote it.
I consider this marginal rather than flat-out inappropriate, but I’ve upvoted posts to avoid paying a karma penalty for replying to them. Someone I’ve discussed this with withdraws the upvote (click on the boldface thumb to withdraw a karma point) after having commented.
I’ve mostly tried to avoid upvoting so far, and I’ve completely avoided downvoting.
My model for upvoting right now is:
If I’ve commented on a post, I should upvote it, because if it was good enough to comment on, then it was good enough to upvote.
If a post or comment is particularly well thought-out, well-reasoned, or otherwise showing an understandable mastery of the issue at hand, it’s worth considering upvoting it.
Don’t upvote unless I’m absolutely confident, because I don’t want to go skewing the statistics here, and I’m also pretty new at this.
My model for downvoting has been:
Don’t do it until you know why other people do it (hence this post).
I’ve also been trying to understand why posts get comments and up/downvotes, but the two don’t seem to correlate well. So are there different rules for upvoting comments versus posts?
Some good posts don’t get many comments, perhaps because they’ve covered the subject thoroughly
I think posts are more likely to get a lot of comments if they’re controversial or have the effect of encouraging people to talk about personal experience.
There’s always going to be a difference between “what criteria for downvoting would make everyone better off” and “what criteria do people actually use”. People will downvote to shut up opposing views, not because that’s a good reason to downvote, but because dinging someone the −1 karma for an opposing view is more effective than not doing so and nobody’s going to stop them.
I down vote posts I think are bad for the sites reputation / public image. I think people who like controversy or trolling privately benefit from such posts and externalize reputation all harms onto the site overall. I also think people in general benefit from a forum with good members and don’t factor in long term reputational effects. I use karma to help people internalize these better.
Is civil, well argued disagreement bad for the site’s reputation?
It shouldn’t be. It’s one of the things I love about the site.