I’d expect it to depend on what downvoting replaces. For example, if it replaces lots of negative comments, I’d expect the downvote mechanism to make the site feel less antagonistic.
True, but I’m not sure if the scales are in favor of downvotes here. In general, it’s a lot less trouble to downvote than to write a negative comment, so you’d expect to see more downvotes than comments. Anonymous downvotes may also feel nastier than negative comments, since there’s nothing to respond to and no feedback on what the downvoter found offensive and why.
(nods) Yup, that’s possible. For me, negative comments feel more antagonistic than numeric ratings, but people differ. And I agree that more people will downvote than write comments.
Incidentally, the word “offensive” may be misleading. The LW policy as stated is that downvoting means the voter wants less of this sort of thing, not that the voter is offended.
In the absence of downvoting, would you suggest an alternative mechanism for tagging/suppressing/hiding posts (or users) people want to see less of? If so, what mechanism?
Or would you recommend having no such mechanism at all?
I’d suggest just relying on replies and upvotes (or the lack of them) to do the soft calibration on what kind of stuff is preferred. I’d prefer the site to generally give people the benefit of the doubt and assume their opinions are worth countering with actual replies instead of an anonymous, unaddressable thumbs-down.
For outright trolling, spamming and other obvious noise that shouldn’t even be on the site, the report feature is good.
Still another thing with the votes is that existing downvotes and upvotes are like a pheromone trail. It’s a lot easier to downvote an already downvoted comment or upvote an already upvoted comment without much thought than it is to make the deliberation whether a new comment should have −1, 0 or +1 with no idea about what other people have already thought about it. This might lead to the voting system amplifying groupthink patterns.
I’d expect it to depend on what downvoting replaces. For example, if it replaces lots of negative comments, I’d expect the downvote mechanism to make the site feel less antagonistic.
True, but I’m not sure if the scales are in favor of downvotes here. In general, it’s a lot less trouble to downvote than to write a negative comment, so you’d expect to see more downvotes than comments. Anonymous downvotes may also feel nastier than negative comments, since there’s nothing to respond to and no feedback on what the downvoter found offensive and why.
(nods) Yup, that’s possible. For me, negative comments feel more antagonistic than numeric ratings, but people differ. And I agree that more people will downvote than write comments.
Incidentally, the word “offensive” may be misleading. The LW policy as stated is that downvoting means the voter wants less of this sort of thing, not that the voter is offended.
In the absence of downvoting, would you suggest an alternative mechanism for tagging/suppressing/hiding posts (or users) people want to see less of? If so, what mechanism?
Or would you recommend having no such mechanism at all?
I’d suggest just relying on replies and upvotes (or the lack of them) to do the soft calibration on what kind of stuff is preferred. I’d prefer the site to generally give people the benefit of the doubt and assume their opinions are worth countering with actual replies instead of an anonymous, unaddressable thumbs-down.
For outright trolling, spamming and other obvious noise that shouldn’t even be on the site, the report feature is good.
Still another thing with the votes is that existing downvotes and upvotes are like a pheromone trail. It’s a lot easier to downvote an already downvoted comment or upvote an already upvoted comment without much thought than it is to make the deliberation whether a new comment should have −1, 0 or +1 with no idea about what other people have already thought about it. This might lead to the voting system amplifying groupthink patterns.