I would need more data to make an opinion on this.
At first sight, it seems to me like having a rule “if your total karma is less than 100, you are not allowed to downvote an article or a comment if doing so would push it under zero” would be good.
But I have no idea how often that happens in real life. Do we actually have many readers with karma below 100 who bother to vote?
By the way, I didn’t vote on your article, but… you announced that you were writing a book i.e. it is not even finished, you didn’t provide a free chapter or something… so what exactly was there to upvote you for?
(Sorry, this is too blunt, and I understand that people need some positive reinforcement along the way. But this is not a general website to make people feel good; unfortunately, aspiring rationalists are a tiny fraction of the general population, so making this website more welcoming to the general population would get us hopelessly diluted. Also, there is a soft taboo on politics, which your post was kinda about, without providing something substantial to justify that.)
I would need more data to make an opinion on this.
At first sight, it seems to me like having a rule “if your total karma is less than 100, you are not allowed to downvote an article or a comment if doing so would push it under zero” would be good.
But I have no idea how often that happens in real life. Do we actually have many readers with karma below 100 who bother to vote?
By the way, I didn’t vote on your article, but… you announced that you were writing a book i.e. it is not even finished, you didn’t provide a free chapter or something… so what exactly was there to upvote you for?
(Sorry, this is too blunt, and I understand that people need some positive reinforcement along the way. But this is not a general website to make people feel good; unfortunately, aspiring rationalists are a tiny fraction of the general population, so making this website more welcoming to the general population would get us hopelessly diluted. Also, there is a soft taboo on politics, which your post was kinda about, without providing something substantial to justify that.)