Hi Nornagest, I’m used to forums with a multi-quote feature. I wasn’t aware it wouldn’t notify you if I just replied to the bottom comment.
I’m presuming no such thing; I was talking about the composition of LW, not the purpose of the downvote button. People’s personal downvote policies are going to vary (quite a bit, really), but as long as the forum as a whole contains people with a mix of values similar to those I mentioned, their votes are going to average out to something like the behavior I described: some votes for conformity, some for contrarianism, some for unrelated norms.
This doesn’t work in practice precisely because mass and retributive downvoting are disproportionately effective. One person with a skewed concept of downvoting can outweigh tons of other people who are using the functions as intended. I might vote up a comment by someone I like, but I’m not going to go through their profiles and give them hundreds (or even thousands) of upvotes, while we’ve seen the downvote-abusers do exactly this. So they won’t average out properly.
The visibility effects of karma, I suspect, are overrated as a driver of behavior except in the case of top-level posts (where they’re taken off most of the interface and become something of a pain to get to): leaving that “downvoted below threshold” notification seems to incite people’s curiosity as much as anything. Some of my highest-ranked posts are replies to comments below the threshold; they wouldn’t have gotten there if people weren’t reading the thread.
We don’t have a lot of clear data on this because an “ugh field” or people refraining from posting are often an invisible cost. I’ve had several times that I had a notion that I wanted to post about here, even considering an entire sequence or at least largely new area of discussion, then thought of some of this type of behavior and changed my mind.
Even if the “downvote below threshold” might incite curiosity, the person in question still loses privileges on site. Lastly, the Eugine_Nier news is quite encouraging and may indicate some solutions to this issue.
This doesn’t work in practice precisely because mass and retributive downvoting are disproportionately effective. [...] So they won’t average out properly.
See the next sentence of my comment.
Even if the “downvote below threshold” might incite curiosity, the person in question still loses privileges on site.
That’s a very different case. Downvoting a person into losing privileges can by done by a single user if the target’s posted a lot of marginal or controversial comments, but unless they’re very new it takes a lot of patience or a downvote script (Eugine seems to have been using patience), and AFAICT most people have karma ratios high enough that it’d take sockpuppets or other abuses that could be targeted by narrower rules. I only know of one illegitimate case, although others may emerge as the consequences of Eugine’s behavior become more apparent. Conversely, downvoting a post below the visibility threshold is much more common but can’t be done by a single user.
Yes, but I feel that problem nullifies the paragraph.
That’s a very different case. Downvoting a person into losing privileges can by done by a single user if the target’s posted a lot of marginal or controversial comments, but unless they’re very new it takes a lot of patience or a downvote script (Eugine seems to have been using patience), and AFAICT most people have karma ratios high enough that it’d take sockpuppets or other abuses that could be targeted by narrower rules.
I would have agreed that the patience required is a barrier, until I found out about the 1000 vote attacks. Also, even giving someone a smaller amount of downvotes can become a problem if it’s disproportionate to the upvotes. Such as downvoting the person’s last 30-50 comments. It simply requires a larger number of people to be doing it. When there was no indication that there would be mass downvote moderating, I actually downvoted Eugine several times in a row out of annoyance when I realized what he was doing to other people...since I figured there was no other option to control it.
Anyway, it may be of course that Eugine is the first person to be outed for this behavior and it will become a regular thing. In which case this issue may cease to be a problem at all.
Eugine may be the only person to have (recently) been using this as a tool of policy, aside from a couple people downvoting him in retribution. If you look at the patterns of people targeted for retributive downvoting (here, here, and here, plus this thread and its relatives), most of the situations seem to fit his MO and apparent set of grievances. Perhaps most tellingly, I don’t know of anyone besides Eugine himself who’s been mass-downvoted by two users (which is easy to tell from karma on obscure or unremarkable posts).
(I’m not sure about Will_Newsome, but that was three years ago.)
Hi Nornagest, I’m used to forums with a multi-quote feature. I wasn’t aware it wouldn’t notify you if I just replied to the bottom comment.
This doesn’t work in practice precisely because mass and retributive downvoting are disproportionately effective. One person with a skewed concept of downvoting can outweigh tons of other people who are using the functions as intended. I might vote up a comment by someone I like, but I’m not going to go through their profiles and give them hundreds (or even thousands) of upvotes, while we’ve seen the downvote-abusers do exactly this. So they won’t average out properly.
We don’t have a lot of clear data on this because an “ugh field” or people refraining from posting are often an invisible cost. I’ve had several times that I had a notion that I wanted to post about here, even considering an entire sequence or at least largely new area of discussion, then thought of some of this type of behavior and changed my mind.
Even if the “downvote below threshold” might incite curiosity, the person in question still loses privileges on site. Lastly, the Eugine_Nier news is quite encouraging and may indicate some solutions to this issue.
See the next sentence of my comment.
That’s a very different case. Downvoting a person into losing privileges can by done by a single user if the target’s posted a lot of marginal or controversial comments, but unless they’re very new it takes a lot of patience or a downvote script (Eugine seems to have been using patience), and AFAICT most people have karma ratios high enough that it’d take sockpuppets or other abuses that could be targeted by narrower rules. I only know of one illegitimate case, although others may emerge as the consequences of Eugine’s behavior become more apparent. Conversely, downvoting a post below the visibility threshold is much more common but can’t be done by a single user.
Yes, but I feel that problem nullifies the paragraph.
I would have agreed that the patience required is a barrier, until I found out about the 1000 vote attacks. Also, even giving someone a smaller amount of downvotes can become a problem if it’s disproportionate to the upvotes. Such as downvoting the person’s last 30-50 comments. It simply requires a larger number of people to be doing it. When there was no indication that there would be mass downvote moderating, I actually downvoted Eugine several times in a row out of annoyance when I realized what he was doing to other people...since I figured there was no other option to control it.
Anyway, it may be of course that Eugine is the first person to be outed for this behavior and it will become a regular thing. In which case this issue may cease to be a problem at all.
Eugine may be the only person to have (recently) been using this as a tool of policy, aside from a couple people downvoting him in retribution. If you look at the patterns of people targeted for retributive downvoting (here, here, and here, plus this thread and its relatives), most of the situations seem to fit his MO and apparent set of grievances. Perhaps most tellingly, I don’t know of anyone besides Eugine himself who’s been mass-downvoted by two users (which is easy to tell from karma on obscure or unremarkable posts).
(I’m not sure about Will_Newsome, but that was three years ago.)