So, if I post some honest argument but make a couple of stupid mistakes (I hope that such a post will get downvoted to around −5), anyone who explains me what I have missed will be punished?
Yes, this policy decision doesn’t happen to be one sided. What you describe seems to be a comparatively rare event though. If you actually want to get better, you’ll have opportunities other than particularly downvoted blunders to seek feedback, and there is an obvious solution of making a non-downvoted separate comment that asks for feedback in such cases, so that said feedback would not be punished.
If I’m hearing you correctly, the plan to limit trolls is push them to make fewer posts inside the auto-hidden areas and more posts outside of the auto-hidden areas?
Well, uh, I suppose that’s one way to deal with trolls.
But if saying something and creating a separate comment to ask for feedback would become accepatable, the trolls will create even more visible noise before they get into obviously malicious territory.
I agree that this is a failure mode, but it’s not an absolute one: people could explain to you via PM. Then you’d be free to edit the comment, and if its score floated back up discussion could ensue below.
PMd explanations are not publicly visible, so they don’t help others who read the thread and make the same mistake as the downvoted poster. They can’t be upvoted by others, which removes a big (in my experience) incentive to post the explanations.
Also, visible actions spread. Someone who posts a correction encourages other people to post corrections to other comments, while someone who PMs does not encourage that behavior. But it is also visible how many responses there are, so that people don’t overwhelm an individual with responses, while they might overwhelm with PMs.
Also, with visible explanations everybody knows what already has been explained and what hasn’t. If it were common to explain things via PM, some points would be raised multiple times while others not at all, depending on the number of readers estimating enough high probability that they are the first to comment on an issue and thus not wasting their time by making duplicite comments.
So, if I post some honest argument but make a couple of stupid mistakes (I hope that such a post will get downvoted to around −5), anyone who explains me what I have missed will be punished?
Yes, this policy decision doesn’t happen to be one sided. What you describe seems to be a comparatively rare event though. If you actually want to get better, you’ll have opportunities other than particularly downvoted blunders to seek feedback, and there is an obvious solution of making a non-downvoted separate comment that asks for feedback in such cases, so that said feedback would not be punished.
If I’m hearing you correctly, the plan to limit trolls is push them to make fewer posts inside the auto-hidden areas and more posts outside of the auto-hidden areas?
Well, uh, I suppose that’s one way to deal with trolls.
The idea is that they’ll make fewer posts if the non-trolls don’t respond.
But if saying something and creating a separate comment to ask for feedback would become accepatable, the trolls will create even more visible noise before they get into obviously malicious territory.
I agree that this is a failure mode, but it’s not an absolute one: people could explain to you via PM. Then you’d be free to edit the comment, and if its score floated back up discussion could ensue below.
PMd explanations are not publicly visible, so they don’t help others who read the thread and make the same mistake as the downvoted poster. They can’t be upvoted by others, which removes a big (in my experience) incentive to post the explanations.
Also, visible actions spread. Someone who posts a correction encourages other people to post corrections to other comments, while someone who PMs does not encourage that behavior. But it is also visible how many responses there are, so that people don’t overwhelm an individual with responses, while they might overwhelm with PMs.
Also, with visible explanations everybody knows what already has been explained and what hasn’t. If it were common to explain things via PM, some points would be raised multiple times while others not at all, depending on the number of readers estimating enough high probability that they are the first to comment on an issue and thus not wasting their time by making duplicite comments.