I’m new to this discussion, so please excuse if this point has been discussed before: Perhaps it would be helpful to allow LW users to send optional (?) and anonymous messages when downvoting. I think, what is inefficient or even harsh about downvotes is that you cannot judge (1) whether the downvoter is actually in the position to judge you and (2) what the exact reason for the downvote is. It’s a bit like the (sometimes anxiety inducing) exercise of reading social cues, but it is in this case even more difficult due to the abstraction to a number.
Edit: Perhaps the downvote could also provide some anonymized information like karma, comment count and account creation date.
I just had another idea which may or may not be worthwhile to look into: How about allowing LW users to remove a downvote that they have received in case they see it as unjustified? I’m not entirely sure what all implications of that would be, but at least people would be able to recover from a negative score after they have corrected their comment for example.
This is already possible by logging into the Username account and sending a message or reply from there, but we could do something to make it more convenient. Thanks for the idea.
ETA: One possible issue with this I see is that the anonymity might encourage people to be meaner than they would be when posting/messaging under their main account, but perhaps there are ways around this?
I’m new to this discussion, so please excuse if this point has been discussed before: Perhaps it would be helpful to allow LW users to send optional (?) and anonymous messages when downvoting. I think, what is inefficient or even harsh about downvotes is that you cannot judge (1) whether the downvoter is actually in the position to judge you and (2) what the exact reason for the downvote is. It’s a bit like the (sometimes anxiety inducing) exercise of reading social cues, but it is in this case even more difficult due to the abstraction to a number.
Edit: Perhaps the downvote could also provide some anonymized information like karma, comment count and account creation date.
I just had another idea which may or may not be worthwhile to look into: How about allowing LW users to remove a downvote that they have received in case they see it as unjustified? I’m not entirely sure what all implications of that would be, but at least people would be able to recover from a negative score after they have corrected their comment for example.
This is already possible by logging into the Username account and sending a message or reply from there, but we could do something to make it more convenient. Thanks for the idea.
ETA: One possible issue with this I see is that the anonymity might encourage people to be meaner than they would be when posting/messaging under their main account, but perhaps there are ways around this?
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