We really need to have a discussion about the polite way to downvote people. I say that the top-level comment shows the right way to moderate, with discussion about the decision to downvote, while this post above mine has been moderated badly. The comment above seems to have undergone some drive-by moderation, with no one saying what he did wrong. One line would do, “This comment downvoted because it is vapid/nonsensical/mistaken” or something. What would be really nice would be if you, anonymous moderators, would set people straight when they made a mistake (as has been done at the top-level) so that we can discuss it in public and avoid it in future. I’m not saying you should explain every downvote, but if you’re hammering someone into the negatives, at least have the guts to say why. Was the post above downvoted because it was bad or because he agreed with the bad post of the top-level commenter? If so, a simple “Your post downvoted for reasons I gave above” would have sufficed.
Downvoting without explanation smacks of laziness or vindictiveness, and degrades the quality of the discussion. If you cannot be bothered to provide an explanation for your downvote, I do not think you should be moderating at all.
I favor drive-by downvoting because otherwise we don’t really have a downvoting system. Downvotes simply shouldn’t be that awful. They’re just info about how others think you did, and in extreme cases (-4 or below) a way to get comments that newcomers shouldn’t see off the immediately visible page (but still visible if you want to probe further).
I think that it is very important to look at how much work the commenter put into their comment.
One thing that kills discussion boards is that the conversations become too cliched. Mr. A makes the standard comment. Mr. B make the standard rebuttal. Mr. A makes the standard defence. Mr. B makes the traditional follow up.
When Mr. A makes the standard comment, is that for real, or is it just trolling? Tough question. I think that there comes a point at which one has to get tough and do drive-by downvoting on valid, on topic comments, because they are common place and threaten to destroy the discussion by making it too familiar, swamping the discussion with the banal.
The other side to this it if Mr. A makes a three paragraph comment. 1)His point. 2)The standard rebuttal. 3)Why he thinks his points survives the standard rebuttal. At this point we know that Mr. A is not a troll. He has put in too much work to count coup on getting a bite. He is making a effort to move the discussion on briskly so that it can reach unbroken ground. He has earned an explanation of why his comment is crap, and I would say that he has earned the right to an actual typed in criticism instead of a down vote.
There are other kinds of work worthy of respect. It is easy to make a long general response, either by being a fast typist and rattling it off, or by use of cut and paste. A comment is worthy or respect if the commenter has taken the time to tailor it so that it is clear how the general point applies to the particular case under discussion. Gathering up and checking relevant links eats time. If some-one has gone to the trouble of decorating his comment with relevant links, that should earn him immunity from drive-by down voting.
One the other hand, there is discussion in the blog sphere of turning off comments altogether. Some people say that if the comments are there they feel obliged to read them, but actually they are mostly the same-old-same-old and a waste of time. Which ends up with the reader feeling that they are wasting their time reading the blog and giving up altogether. Short, mildly entertaining, chitchatty comments that fill the fleeting hour with work not done will eventually kill LessWrong. I think readers should be very free with downvotes for lightweight comments.
We really need to have a discussion about the polite way to downvote people. I say that the top-level comment shows the right way to moderate, with discussion about the decision to downvote, while this post above mine has been moderated badly. The comment above seems to have undergone some drive-by moderation, with no one saying what he did wrong. One line would do, “This comment downvoted because it is vapid/nonsensical/mistaken” or something. What would be really nice would be if you, anonymous moderators, would set people straight when they made a mistake (as has been done at the top-level) so that we can discuss it in public and avoid it in future. I’m not saying you should explain every downvote, but if you’re hammering someone into the negatives, at least have the guts to say why. Was the post above downvoted because it was bad or because he agreed with the bad post of the top-level commenter? If so, a simple “Your post downvoted for reasons I gave above” would have sufficed.
Downvoting without explanation smacks of laziness or vindictiveness, and degrades the quality of the discussion. If you cannot be bothered to provide an explanation for your downvote, I do not think you should be moderating at all.
I favor drive-by downvoting because otherwise we don’t really have a downvoting system. Downvotes simply shouldn’t be that awful. They’re just info about how others think you did, and in extreme cases (-4 or below) a way to get comments that newcomers shouldn’t see off the immediately visible page (but still visible if you want to probe further).
I think that it is very important to look at how much work the commenter put into their comment.
One thing that kills discussion boards is that the conversations become too cliched. Mr. A makes the standard comment. Mr. B make the standard rebuttal. Mr. A makes the standard defence. Mr. B makes the traditional follow up.
When Mr. A makes the standard comment, is that for real, or is it just trolling? Tough question. I think that there comes a point at which one has to get tough and do drive-by downvoting on valid, on topic comments, because they are common place and threaten to destroy the discussion by making it too familiar, swamping the discussion with the banal.
The other side to this it if Mr. A makes a three paragraph comment. 1)His point. 2)The standard rebuttal. 3)Why he thinks his points survives the standard rebuttal. At this point we know that Mr. A is not a troll. He has put in too much work to count coup on getting a bite. He is making a effort to move the discussion on briskly so that it can reach unbroken ground. He has earned an explanation of why his comment is crap, and I would say that he has earned the right to an actual typed in criticism instead of a down vote.
There are other kinds of work worthy of respect. It is easy to make a long general response, either by being a fast typist and rattling it off, or by use of cut and paste. A comment is worthy or respect if the commenter has taken the time to tailor it so that it is clear how the general point applies to the particular case under discussion. Gathering up and checking relevant links eats time. If some-one has gone to the trouble of decorating his comment with relevant links, that should earn him immunity from drive-by down voting.
One the other hand, there is discussion in the blog sphere of turning off comments altogether. Some people say that if the comments are there they feel obliged to read them, but actually they are mostly the same-old-same-old and a waste of time. Which ends up with the reader feeling that they are wasting their time reading the blog and giving up altogether. Short, mildly entertaining, chitchatty comments that fill the fleeting hour with work not done will eventually kill LessWrong. I think readers should be very free with downvotes for lightweight comments.
IAWYC.