I’m aware of that. And indeed we don’t get the massive dogpiles on bad ideas that we used to, or I’d expect downvoting to increase their visibility. But the argument from vote totals still seems to apply.
Probably applies better to downvoted comments than to top-level posts, though. It’s much easier to expand a collapsed comment thread than to notice the presence of a post that’s been voted off the sidebars, and while curiosity might be a motive for the former I don’t think it’s sufficient for the latter.
But the argument from vote totals still seems to apply
I am not sure—you have an unobservable characteristic of a post, let’s call it propensity to elicit replies. It is likely to be correlated with how controversial the post is. A controversial post is likely to get both many replies and many downvotes (as well as many upvotes). On the other hand a milquetoast post will get neither replies nor downvotes.
Huh? Once the post drops below −4 net, it becomes really hard to see it and costly (5 karma) to reply to it. There is a clear threshold effect.
I’m aware of that. And indeed we don’t get the massive dogpiles on bad ideas that we used to, or I’d expect downvoting to increase their visibility. But the argument from vote totals still seems to apply.
Probably applies better to downvoted comments than to top-level posts, though. It’s much easier to expand a collapsed comment thread than to notice the presence of a post that’s been voted off the sidebars, and while curiosity might be a motive for the former I don’t think it’s sufficient for the latter.
I am not sure—you have an unobservable characteristic of a post, let’s call it propensity to elicit replies. It is likely to be correlated with how controversial the post is. A controversial post is likely to get both many replies and many downvotes (as well as many upvotes). On the other hand a milquetoast post will get neither replies nor downvotes.