I considered that outcome but I’m not too concerned about it. ialdabaoth got at least 200ish downvotes, so someone would need 800 karma to repeat that feat (and that’s assuming they’ve only targeted ialdabaoth). A “little” karma won’t do it.
A determined person could certainly gather 800 karma, but the effort involved would have a fair chance of deterring them. Even if it didn’t deter them, recouping the karma would take a while, and we could simply revisit the issue with fresh eyes if/when the downvote bombing eventually resumed.
It’s less strong than we thought. According to the comments in a more recent discussion, I had things the wrong way round: the downvoter wouldn’t need 4 karma points per downvote, but could actually apply 4 downvotes per karma point. So the bar for downvoting ialdabaoth 200 times would be only 50 karma, not 800. In light of that, I think taking away someone’s downvote button would be a lot less effective than I thought.
I considered that outcome but I’m not too concerned about it. ialdabaoth got at least 200ish downvotes, so someone would need 800 karma to repeat that feat (and that’s assuming they’ve only targeted ialdabaoth). A “little” karma won’t do it.
A determined person could certainly gather 800 karma, but the effort involved would have a fair chance of deterring them. Even if it didn’t deter them, recouping the karma would take a while, and we could simply revisit the issue with fresh eyes if/when the downvote bombing eventually resumed.
That’s a strong argument. I’m convinced.
It’s less strong than we thought. According to the comments in a more recent discussion, I had things the wrong way round: the downvoter wouldn’t need 4 karma points per downvote, but could actually apply 4 downvotes per karma point. So the bar for downvoting ialdabaoth 200 times would be only 50 karma, not 800. In light of that, I think taking away someone’s downvote button would be a lot less effective than I thought.