As a counterpoint, when I feel like a circle jerk downvote is happening I usually upvote to counteract it. I did in this case with your OP, even though I think it’s wrong. And apparently I’m not the only one who does so. So it’s not all bad… but yeah, I agree it is disappointing. I don’t think your post was low-quality, it was just wrong. Therefore not deserving of a negative score, instead deserving of thoughtful replies.
Yeah, I wanted to clarify that this is closer to what I mean, but I wondered if habryka endorses downvoting comments seen as obviously wrong.
Such a strategy seems like it could lead to a general culture of circlejerking, but it might also prevent the same tired discussions from playing out repeatedly. I don’t have a good sense of the relative importance of these concerns, and I suspected an LW admin’s intuition might be better calibrated.
[LW Admin here]. Karma gets interpreted in a number of ways, but one of my favorites is that karma is for “how much attention you want a thing to get.” If a comment seems wrong but valuable for people to read, I might upvote it. If it seems correct but it is immaterial and unhelpful, I might downvote it. Generally, there’s a higher bar for things that wrong to be worth reading by people.
I can’t fully explain other people’s voting behavior, but in my case I’d often downvote wrong things just so they get less attention.
As a counterpoint, when I feel like a circle jerk downvote is happening I usually upvote to counteract it. I did in this case with your OP, even though I think it’s wrong. And apparently I’m not the only one who does so. So it’s not all bad… but yeah, I agree it is disappointing. I don’t think your post was low-quality, it was just wrong. Therefore not deserving of a negative score, instead deserving of thoughtful replies.
Yeah, I wanted to clarify that this is closer to what I mean, but I wondered if habryka endorses downvoting comments seen as obviously wrong.
Such a strategy seems like it could lead to a general culture of circlejerking, but it might also prevent the same tired discussions from playing out repeatedly. I don’t have a good sense of the relative importance of these concerns, and I suspected an LW admin’s intuition might be better calibrated.
[LW Admin here]. Karma gets interpreted in a number of ways, but one of my favorites is that karma is for “how much attention you want a thing to get.” If a comment seems wrong but valuable for people to read, I might upvote it. If it seems correct but it is immaterial and unhelpful, I might downvote it. Generally, there’s a higher bar for things that wrong to be worth reading by people.
I can’t fully explain other people’s voting behavior, but in my case I’d often downvote wrong things just so they get less attention.