I guess, in reality some people are going to be first-order voters no matter what, some people are going to be second-order voters no matter what, and the resulting karma depends on the order they placed their votes.
Imagine an article such that five people think “this is nice”, and five people think “this is nice, but does not deserve more than 5 total karma”. If the former vote first, the article gets 5 karma, then the latter abstain from voting, so it stay at 5. But if the latter vote first, the article gets 5 karma, then the former vote, and it goes up to 10.
Among the second-order voters, there is a difference between those who go “this article deserves 5 total karma, so I will upvote if lower and abstain if higher” and those who go “this article deserves 5 total karma, so I will upvote if lower and downvote if higher”—the former I can live with, but the latter make my blood boil, because what they basically do is upvoting the content they don’t actually like and downvoting the content they do actually like, just based on their estimate of how the voting will end, which can easily turn out to be wrong.
Imagine a crackpot article that nonetheless contains a spark of an interesting idea. 20 people want to downvote it. 20 people think that it is bad and its karma should be exactly zero. 5 people like it. The resulting karma may be anything between −20 and +5, depending on the order of votes.
I guess, in reality some people are going to be first-order voters no matter what, some people are going to be second-order voters no matter what, and the resulting karma depends on the order they placed their votes.
Imagine an article such that five people think “this is nice”, and five people think “this is nice, but does not deserve more than 5 total karma”. If the former vote first, the article gets 5 karma, then the latter abstain from voting, so it stay at 5. But if the latter vote first, the article gets 5 karma, then the former vote, and it goes up to 10.
Among the second-order voters, there is a difference between those who go “this article deserves 5 total karma, so I will upvote if lower and abstain if higher” and those who go “this article deserves 5 total karma, so I will upvote if lower and downvote if higher”—the former I can live with, but the latter make my blood boil, because what they basically do is upvoting the content they don’t actually like and downvoting the content they do actually like, just based on their estimate of how the voting will end, which can easily turn out to be wrong.
Imagine a crackpot article that nonetheless contains a spark of an interesting idea. 20 people want to downvote it. 20 people think that it is bad and its karma should be exactly zero. 5 people like it. The resulting karma may be anything between −20 and +5, depending on the order of votes.