It is not a question of opposing other people’s preferences. It is question of taking the actions that will most likely result in the situation which is closest to the one I want.
But the mechanism by which you do so is opposing other people’s preferences. That is, if there’s a comment that I want to be at net 0, then upvoting it if it’s at −1 or downvoting it if it’s at +1 accomplishes that goal, but which one I do depends on what the community consensus was at the time of voting.
In general, I think voting based on current karma decreases the info content of voting and harms more than it helps. Vote on your desire to see or not see a comment, not your desire for the community to want to see or not want to see the comment!
I agree that establishing the general claim that voting based on current karma harms more than it helps requires more than the first paragraph, and is just a statement of a conclusion rather than an argument leading to that conclusion.
But I think the rest of the second paragraph is related to the first—the reason why it decreases the info content of voting is because the votes are clashing (your vote on a comment is now negatively correlated with my vote, making your vote less influential).
I also don’t think the first claim makes much sense. First of all, it’s not always anti correlated. It’s only anti-correlated if you vote unconditionally, and the post is far below or far above the value we think it provides. If it’s positive, but not positive enough, the vote is correlated. If it’s negative, but not negative enough, the vote is correlated.
Secondly, you’re assuming everyone uses the same scoring rule you do. We’ve already established that at least two people use the different scoring rule, and as another commenter pointed out, it’s likely that there are many people who vote strategically. In that case, if we think the post has the same value, we’d do the same thing in the same situation, and if we think it doesn’t ahve the same value, they’re not—which is how it should be.
But the mechanism by which you do so is opposing other people’s preferences. That is, if there’s a comment that I want to be at net 0, then upvoting it if it’s at −1 or downvoting it if it’s at +1 accomplishes that goal, but which one I do depends on what the community consensus was at the time of voting.
In general, I think voting based on current karma decreases the info content of voting and harms more than it helps. Vote on your desire to see or not see a comment, not your desire for the community to want to see or not want to see the comment!
I don’t think your second paragraph follows from your first.
I agree that establishing the general claim that voting based on current karma harms more than it helps requires more than the first paragraph, and is just a statement of a conclusion rather than an argument leading to that conclusion.
But I think the rest of the second paragraph is related to the first—the reason why it decreases the info content of voting is because the votes are clashing (your vote on a comment is now negatively correlated with my vote, making your vote less influential).
I also don’t think the first claim makes much sense. First of all, it’s not always anti correlated. It’s only anti-correlated if you vote unconditionally, and the post is far below or far above the value we think it provides. If it’s positive, but not positive enough, the vote is correlated. If it’s negative, but not negative enough, the vote is correlated.
Secondly, you’re assuming everyone uses the same scoring rule you do. We’ve already established that at least two people use the different scoring rule, and as another commenter pointed out, it’s likely that there are many people who vote strategically. In that case, if we think the post has the same value, we’d do the same thing in the same situation, and if we think it doesn’t ahve the same value, they’re not—which is how it should be.