I’m assuming “false” here is based on the assumption that upvotes/downvotes should be a reflection of the voter’s opinion of the particular comment being voted on, not his or her opinion of the user making the comment without regard to the content of the comment itself. Mass downvoting seems like a strategy for conveying a message about a user, not a comment, and that is plausibly a subversion of the karma system’s intent.
That rationale for the karma system would be the rankest hypocrisy. To facilitate the upvoting of particular commenters—regardless of content—LW records karma totals.
To facilitate the upvoting of particular commenters—regardless of content
It does no such thing. It tracks how much people have been upvoted to estimate their contribution to the community; it tracks monthly totals to estimate how much of that was recent.
I’m assuming “false” here is based on the assumption that upvotes/downvotes should be a reflection of the voter’s opinion of the particular comment being voted on, not his or her opinion of the user making the comment without regard to the content of the comment itself. Mass downvoting seems like a strategy for conveying a message about a user, not a comment, and that is plausibly a subversion of the karma system’s intent.
That rationale for the karma system would be the rankest hypocrisy. To facilitate the upvoting of particular commenters—regardless of content—LW records karma totals.
It does no such thing. It tracks how much people have been upvoted to estimate their contribution to the community; it tracks monthly totals to estimate how much of that was recent.