But if no one votes, I tend to assume the article is regarded by the readers as chaff. The four of ten that are not on the front page have relatively fewer votes.
True—but this is not an instance of no one voting (I assume “Are You Anosognosic?” has received some downvotes as well because it is under ‘Controversial’). The purpose of voting is to improve the signal to noise ratio, but there is so little noise on LW that voting is really only distinguishing between good signal and great signal. Nobody is afraid that not voting will diminish the current signal to noise ratio, are they?
But if no one votes, I tend to assume the article is regarded by the readers as chaff. The four of ten that are not on the front page have relatively fewer votes.
True—but this is not an instance of no one voting (I assume “Are You Anosognosic?” has received some downvotes as well because it is under ‘Controversial’). The purpose of voting is to improve the signal to noise ratio, but there is so little noise on LW that voting is really only distinguishing between good signal and great signal. Nobody is afraid that not voting will diminish the current signal to noise ratio, are they?