“If you exercise a certain degree of humility, use a spellchecker, and avoid being confrontational, it is very unlikely you will be voted down.”
This will hopefully be true with the new system that shows negative scores (I for one will be a lot more loath to vote down anything below +2), but I’m not sure it has been true historically, as I have seen posts that I liked and were all of the above that have been voted down. I’m not entirely opposed to the karma changes, as I can see that there will be positive effects via motivation, but I think a modification may be helpful: Instead of downvotes being automatic −10, why not let negative scores on posts be −2 or −3? It would still make people think twice before posting, without scaring the bejeezes out of lower karma posters, and readers won’t feel as bad about voting down things that really oughtn’t be here.
“If you exercise a certain degree of humility, use a spellchecker, and avoid being confrontational, it is very unlikely you will be voted down.”
This will hopefully be true with the new system that shows negative scores (I for one will be a lot more loath to vote down anything below +2), but I’m not sure it has been true historically, as I have seen posts that I liked and were all of the above that have been voted down. I’m not entirely opposed to the karma changes, as I can see that there will be positive effects via motivation, but I think a modification may be helpful: Instead of downvotes being automatic −10, why not let negative scores on posts be −2 or −3? It would still make people think twice before posting, without scaring the bejeezes out of lower karma posters, and readers won’t feel as bad about voting down things that really oughtn’t be here.