An alternative possibility, that may have the same or a similar effect, is to auto-close the children of heavily downvoted posts when they appear on the “Recent Comments” window. Adding an extra step to reply to such a post will tend to reduce the number of replies that is gets, and will clearly signal to the reader that the post is, in fact, the child of a heavily downvoted post.
I have no idea if this possibility will be better or worse than the heritable penalties (nor, for that matter, which option would be easier to implement).
Could we change the “Recent Comments” box to say “Recent Threads”, instead, with a count of updated comments, net karma, and most recent poster for each thread as usual ? For example, something like this:
EliezerYudkowsky on Meta-note: Right now… by EliezerYudkowsky on The Worst Argument In The World | 7k, 2 new Mugbuster on You all smell… by Obvious_Troll on The Worst Argument In The World | −15k, 18 new
This tells me that Eliezer commented on a thread that he started, and the thread is generally positively rated, though low-volume, so I might click it. On the other hand, Mugbuster commented on a high-volume thread that has cumulative −15 karma, which means that it’s probably a trolling thread, and I should stay out of it.
Also, to reply to a comment elsewhere in thread, obviously penalties are not going to be charged retrospectively if an ancestor later goes to −3. Nobody has proposed this. Navigating the LW rules is not intended to require precognition.
An alternative possibility, that may have the same or a similar effect, is to auto-close the children of heavily downvoted posts when they appear on the “Recent Comments” window. Adding an extra step to reply to such a post will tend to reduce the number of replies that is gets, and will clearly signal to the reader that the post is, in fact, the child of a heavily downvoted post.
I have no idea if this possibility will be better or worse than the heritable penalties (nor, for that matter, which option would be easier to implement).
Could we change the “Recent Comments” box to say “Recent Threads”, instead, with a count of updated comments, net karma, and most recent poster for each thread as usual ? For example, something like this:
EliezerYudkowsky on Meta-note: Right now… by EliezerYudkowsky on The Worst Argument In The World | 7k, 2 new
Mugbuster on You all smell… by Obvious_Troll on The Worst Argument In The World | −15k, 18 new
This tells me that Eliezer commented on a thread that he started, and the thread is generally positively rated, though low-volume, so I might click it. On the other hand, Mugbuster commented on a high-volume thread that has cumulative −15 karma, which means that it’s probably a trolling thread, and I should stay out of it.
That one’s in progress, I think.
Also, to reply to a comment elsewhere in thread, obviously penalties are not going to be charged retrospectively if an ancestor later goes to −3. Nobody has proposed this. Navigating the LW rules is not intended to require precognition.
Well, it was required when (negative) karma for Main articles increased tenfold.
Yes, or when downvotes were limited without warning.