At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if there existed at least one person who did follow chaosmosis around to downvote everything he said. I strongly disapprove of this being done, but it’s the inevitable conclusion when someone chooses to spew insults on other people en masse.
FWIW, when I see someone making really bad comments, I tend to look at their other comments to see if they’re also downvote-worthy, since it’s a source of low-hanging fruit for moderation.
(I also subscribe to RSS feeds of particularly bad cases and downvote all of their bad comments (i.e. most of what they write) if they resurface later.)
I do that too, but have only downvoted maybe 2 or 3 of chaosmosis’s comments (he’s nor particularly trollish or obnoxious, just a bit rude and obstinate; I don’t know (or care) what the original disagreement on HPMoR was).
It’s fairly likely that a particularly stupid or rude comment in the recent comments can trigger many people independently doing “mild karmassissanation” (checking the user’s recent comments, and downvoting a couple stupid posts), giving an overall impression of systematic downvoting.
Trying to articulate what I meant by karma sink and I don’t really have a coherent notion of the statement. I think I meant something like a single comment leading to massive downvotes, but when stated that way it doesn’t seem to be that bad.
At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if there existed at least one person who did follow chaosmosis around to downvote everything he said. I strongly disapprove of this being done, but it’s the inevitable conclusion when someone chooses to spew insults on other people en masse.
Really doesn’t seem worth it. He’s just a Mostly Harmless kid who is bungling his way through learning how power works. There isn’t much harm he could do even if he tried. I focus my specific moderating attention on cases that do real damage to serious conversations (which usually means straw man power user debaters.)
It’s sufficient for more people to start paying attention to a particular user’s output, without changing the attitude to individual comments in any way.
This is what motivated the insults in the first place, you’ve got the chain of causality backwards.
Or there’s a feedback loop, where someone downvotes you, you then insult people, then more people downvote you for the insults, then you insult people some more for those downvotes, which causes even more people to downvote you… and so forth.
I expect this is partially true but this isn’t what I’m concerned with.
I’m concerned with the people for whom this is false, the people who are -repping everything I write. I’m also concerned with the people who are specifically targeting my posts and following me around and criticizing everything I write, and the fact that there’s half a dozen people who are plus repping everyone who says anything which doesn’t agree with my position, and that I have to argue against so many different people to support a theory that I think is pretty straightforward and is probably true.
You seem to currently have exactly one downvoted comment outside the HPMOR discussion and that at only −1. What makes you think the effects you see aren’t simply a result of people actively participating in these threads noticing and responding to comments they deem poorly supported? No following around required.
As for the downvotes, I suspect an overwelming majority of them result from your adversarial reactions to criticism, not the HPMOR content. How many downvotes had this received before you added this edit?
What the hell with the random neg reps, seriously. This site actually has worse and stronger and more irrational groupthinking than other sites I visit. This is bizarre and unhealthy, I think I might not comment on here anymore, although I’m not really sure yet because the quality of the actual posts is much better although the comments are worse.
At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if there existed at least one person who did follow chaosmosis around to downvote everything he said. I strongly disapprove of this being done, but it’s the inevitable conclusion when someone chooses to spew insults on other people en masse.
FWIW, when I see someone making really bad comments, I tend to look at their other comments to see if they’re also downvote-worthy, since it’s a source of low-hanging fruit for moderation.
(I also subscribe to RSS feeds of particularly bad cases and downvote all of their bad comments (i.e. most of what they write) if they resurface later.)
I hadn’t thought of that. Good idea!
I do that too, but have only downvoted maybe 2 or 3 of chaosmosis’s comments (he’s nor particularly trollish or obnoxious, just a bit rude and obstinate; I don’t know (or care) what the original disagreement on HPMoR was).
It’s fairly likely that a particularly stupid or rude comment in the recent comments can trigger many people independently doing “mild karmassissanation” (checking the user’s recent comments, and downvoting a couple stupid posts), giving an overall impression of systematic downvoting.
Alternately: just very immature and sensitive.
Please don’t do this. This can lead to karma sinks and also potentially reinforce group think.
What is a “karma sink” in this context?
Trying to articulate what I meant by karma sink and I don’t really have a coherent notion of the statement. I think I meant something like a single comment leading to massive downvotes, but when stated that way it doesn’t seem to be that bad.
Is that actually a problem?
Really doesn’t seem worth it. He’s just a Mostly Harmless kid who is bungling his way through learning how power works. There isn’t much harm he could do even if he tried. I focus my specific moderating attention on cases that do real damage to serious conversations (which usually means straw man power user debaters.)
A good policy. For instance, worrying about moderation on the Harry Potter thread is silly of me.
It’s sufficient for more people to start paying attention to a particular user’s output, without changing the attitude to individual comments in any way.
This has been happening for a while, and there’s more than one person.
This is what motivated the insults in the first place, you’ve got the chain of causality backwards.
Or there’s a feedback loop, where someone downvotes you, you then insult people, then more people downvote you for the insults, then you insult people some more for those downvotes, which causes even more people to downvote you… and so forth.
I expect this is partially true but this isn’t what I’m concerned with.
I’m concerned with the people for whom this is false, the people who are -repping everything I write. I’m also concerned with the people who are specifically targeting my posts and following me around and criticizing everything I write, and the fact that there’s half a dozen people who are plus repping everyone who says anything which doesn’t agree with my position, and that I have to argue against so many different people to support a theory that I think is pretty straightforward and is probably true.
You seem to currently have exactly one downvoted comment outside the HPMOR discussion and that at only −1. What makes you think the effects you see aren’t simply a result of people actively participating in these threads noticing and responding to comments they deem poorly supported? No following around required.
As for the downvotes, I suspect an overwelming majority of them result from your adversarial reactions to criticism, not the HPMOR content. How many downvotes had this received before you added this edit?
Edited per thomblake’s suggestion.
You should remove the word “EDIT” from your quote, as it makes the comment harder to parse and isn’t necessary in context.