The problem is that it isn’t meaningless. I was in the middle of a rather interesting ethical discussion, and many of my posts that I had just made went from 0 to −1, potentially dropping off of the radar of other readers. All it takes is two users colluding (or one user with an additional sock account) to effectively shut down someone else’s entire voice.
If a post goes from 4 to 3, that isn’t a big deal, but if it drops below the minimum display threshold before anyone gets a chance to read it, the entire flow of conversation gets disrupted.
Perhaps you could convince someone who wasn’t very interested in the discussion to blindly upvote all of your posts, to counteract it? You are right that this has an impact on ongoing discussions, but it can also be undone with the help of a kindly stranger.
Well, here’s to crossing fingers and hoping that the metasystem stabilizes, and I appreciate the gesture. ;)
And let it further be known that if I feel like the process has swung too far in the other direction (i.e., giving me too MUCH karma), I promise to expend that karma responding to negative-karma posts in an attempt to explain how I feel they could adjust their posting behavior towards more rational discourse.
The problem is that it isn’t meaningless. I was in the middle of a rather interesting ethical discussion, and many of my posts that I had just made went from 0 to −1, potentially dropping off of the radar of other readers. All it takes is two users colluding (or one user with an additional sock account) to effectively shut down someone else’s entire voice.
If a post goes from 4 to 3, that isn’t a big deal, but if it drops below the minimum display threshold before anyone gets a chance to read it, the entire flow of conversation gets disrupted.
Perhaps you could convince someone who wasn’t very interested in the discussion to blindly upvote all of your posts, to counteract it? You are right that this has an impact on ongoing discussions, but it can also be undone with the help of a kindly stranger.
I feel like correcting an abuse of a system by further abusing the system is a bad precedent to set
If you feel this is a viable solution, you could have simply implemented it, rather than suggesting that I convince someone to implement.
Let it be known that I’ve upvoted all of your things to counteract whichever person downvoted all of your things, and nobody else should do that.
Well, here’s to crossing fingers and hoping that the metasystem stabilizes, and I appreciate the gesture. ;)
And let it further be known that if I feel like the process has swung too far in the other direction (i.e., giving me too MUCH karma), I promise to expend that karma responding to negative-karma posts in an attempt to explain how I feel they could adjust their posting behavior towards more rational discourse.
Make it bad advice though lest you get more upvotes.
Good to see that your topic has ultimately led to a portable, scalable and non-complicated solution.