If that norm is replaced by up/downvoting such comments as I advocate, you’re right that the user doesn’t suddenly become aware of what the problem/benefit is. But they weren’t aware of that information before implementing that norm-replacement, either.
If all your comments are downvoted because someone deemed that 20% of them are damaging, it’s much more difficult to deduce why that happened than if voting happens per comment.
if our goal is to maximize the amount of information people get about what’s wrong (or right) with their comments [...] karma is a deeply flawed mechanism for achieving that goal
If you take into account how lazy people are explaining themselves, it might still be a pretty good mechanism for that purpose, certainly better than nothing.
If all your comments are downvoted because someone deemed that 20% of them are damaging, it’s much more difficult to deduce why that happened than if voting happens per comment.
Yes, that’s true.
If you take into account how lazy people are explaining themselves, it might still be a pretty good mechanism for that purpose, certainly better than nothing.
I certainly agree that karma is better than nothing, and I suppose it’s possible that it represents an optimal means for getting information from people too lazy to provide information by other means.
If all your comments are downvoted because someone deemed that 20% of them are damaging, it’s much more difficult to deduce why that happened than if voting happens per comment.
If you take into account how lazy people are explaining themselves, it might still be a pretty good mechanism for that purpose, certainly better than nothing.
Yes, that’s true.
I certainly agree that karma is better than nothing, and I suppose it’s possible that it represents an optimal means for getting information from people too lazy to provide information by other means.