When I downvote a comment it is basically never because I want the author to delete that comment. I rarely downvote comments already bellow 0, but even when I do it is not because I wish the comment was deleted.
Instead, it mostly means that I dislike the way in which that comment was written and thought out; that I don’t want people to have that style / approach when commenting. This correlates with me disagreeing with the position, but not strongly so; and I try to keep my opinions about the object topic to the agree/disagree voting.
I don’t know how representative I am of the Lesswrong population in that regard, but I at least think most people who downvote a comment would prefer for it to stay undeleted; if only to make past discussions legilible.
When I downvote a comment it is basically never because I want the author to delete that comment. I rarely downvote comments already bellow 0, but even when I do it is not because I wish the comment was deleted. Instead, it mostly means that I dislike the way in which that comment was written and thought out; that I don’t want people to have that style / approach when commenting. This correlates with me disagreeing with the position, but not strongly so; and I try to keep my opinions about the object topic to the agree/disagree voting.
I don’t know how representative I am of the Lesswrong population in that regard, but I at least think most people who downvote a comment would prefer for it to stay undeleted; if only to make past discussions legilible.