However, I don’t feel comfortable with people downvoting “meh” articles because of the author (even though it’s daily).
The “meh” articles should be downvoted. Simply because LW is the place where I come to read something better.
However, it makes sense strategically to be more lenient towards new authors. The reasoning is that it people are often scared to make the first post here, and that it takes some time to get attuned to the local culture. This there is a chance that a person who wrote a “meh” article first will write better articles later. On the other hand, having one’s only article downvoted is probably emotionally harder that having e.g. one of three articles downvoted. So it the new author’s first article is “meh”, instead of downvoting I often just abstain from voting and try to give some good advice in a comment.
While this may feel the same, the motivation is not punishing frequent authors (I would be quite happy with frequent high-quality articles), but rather making the first step into the community easier—with the tacit assumption that the author will improve.
The “meh” articles should be downvoted. Simply because LW is the place where I come to read something better.
However, it makes sense strategically to be more lenient towards new authors. The reasoning is that it people are often scared to make the first post here, and that it takes some time to get attuned to the local culture. This there is a chance that a person who wrote a “meh” article first will write better articles later. On the other hand, having one’s only article downvoted is probably emotionally harder that having e.g. one of three articles downvoted. So it the new author’s first article is “meh”, instead of downvoting I often just abstain from voting and try to give some good advice in a comment.
While this may feel the same, the motivation is not punishing frequent authors (I would be quite happy with frequent high-quality articles), but rather making the first step into the community easier—with the tacit assumption that the author will improve.