I think making downvotes completely unavailable beneath a certain karma level wouldn’t be good.
But also I think the outsized effects of downvotes is strongest when it’s one of the first votes, (as it was) rather than when it’s one among many votes, because it also makes the post disappear from the front page and takes away from it the chance to get more votes. upvotes don’t do that, because they make the post stay longer on the frontpage, so it can always later gain more downvotes by new people getting exposed to it.
So if we do limit the power of downvotes or who can cast them, perhaps it should be focused on early votes, and not votes in general?
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 think making downvotes completely unavailable beneath a certain karma level wouldn’t be good.
But also I think the outsized effects of downvotes is strongest when it’s one of the first votes, (as it was) rather than when it’s one among many votes, because it also makes the post disappear from the front page and takes away from it the chance to get more votes. upvotes don’t do that, because they make the post stay longer on the frontpage, so it can always later gain more downvotes by new people getting exposed to it.
So if we do limit the power of downvotes or who can cast them, perhaps it should be focused on early votes, and not votes in general?
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.)