Hmm… I feel that this incentivizes downvoting too strongly
How does this incentivise downvoting? Downvoting is costly signal of displeasure, and as downvotes cost a certain fraction of the karma you deduct, it disincentivises downvoting.
makes downvoting feel kind of shitty on an emotional level.
This is a feature not a bug; we don’t want to encourage downvoting and karma assassination. The idea is that downvoting becomes costly signalling of displeasure. Mere disagreement would not cause downvoting. Downvoting should be costly signalling.
An alternative thing that I’ve been thinking about is to make it so that when you downvote something, you have to give a short explanation between 40 and 400 characters about why you think the comment was bad. Which both adds a cost to downvoting, and actually translates that cost into meaningful information for the commenter.
I thought of this as well, but decided that the StackExchange system of making downvotes cost karma is better for the purposes I thought of.
Another alternative implementation of this could work with a set of common tags that you can choose from when downvoting a comment, maybe of the type “too aggressive”, “didn’t respond to original claim”, “responded to strawman”, etc.
This fails to achieve “adds a cost to downvoting”; if there are custom downvoting tags, then the cost of downvoting is removed. I think making downvotes cost a fraction (<= 0.5) of the karma you deduct serves to discourage downvoting.
Oh, okay. I still think we want to disincentivise downvoting though.
##Pros
Users only downvote content they feel strong displeasure towards.
Karma assassination via sockpuppets becomes impossible, and targeted karma attacks through your main account because you dislike a user becomes very costly.
Moderation of downvoting behaviour would be vastly reduced as users downvote less, and only on content they have strong feelings towards.
#Cons
There are much less downvotes.
I don’t think downvotes should be costly. On StackExchange mediocre content can get a high score if it relates to a popular topic. Given that this website has the goal of filtering content in a way that allows people who only want to read a subset to read the high quality posts downvotes of medicore content as useful information.
I think the first con is a feature and not a bug; it is not clear to me that more downvotes are intrinsically beneficial. The second point is valid criticism and I think we need to way the benefit of the downvotes against their cost.
I suggest users lose 40% of the karma they deduct (since you want to give different users different weights). For example, if you downvote someone, they lose 5 karma, but you lose 2 karma.
I’m not opposed to downvote limits, but I think they need to not be too low. There are situations where I am more likely to downvote many things just because I am more heavily moderating. For example, on comments on my own post I care more and am more likely to both upvote and downvote whereas other times I might just not care that much.
How does this incentivise downvoting? Downvoting is costly signal of displeasure, and as downvotes cost a certain fraction of the karma you deduct, it disincentivises downvoting.
This is a feature not a bug; we don’t want to encourage downvoting and karma assassination. The idea is that downvoting becomes costly signalling of displeasure. Mere disagreement would not cause downvoting. Downvoting should be costly signalling.
I thought of this as well, but decided that the StackExchange system of making downvotes cost karma is better for the purposes I thought of.
This fails to achieve “adds a cost to downvoting”; if there are custom downvoting tags, then the cost of downvoting is removed. I think making downvotes cost a fraction (<= 0.5) of the karma you deduct serves to discourage downvoting.
“How does this incentivise downvoting?”
Sorry, my bad. I wanted to write “disincentivize”, but failed. I guess it’s a warning against using big words.
Oh, okay. I still think we want to disincentivise downvoting though.
##Pros
Users only downvote content they feel strong displeasure towards.
Karma assassination via sockpuppets becomes impossible, and targeted karma attacks through your main account because you dislike a user becomes very costly.
Moderation of downvoting behaviour would be vastly reduced as users downvote less, and only on content they have strong feelings towards.
#Cons
There are much less downvotes.
I don’t think downvotes should be costly. On StackExchange mediocre content can get a high score if it relates to a popular topic.
Given that this website has the goal of filtering content in a way that allows people who only want to read a subset to read the high quality posts downvotes of medicore content as useful information.
I think the first con is a feature and not a bug; it is not clear to me that more downvotes are intrinsically beneficial. The second point is valid criticism and I think we need to way the benefit of the downvotes against their cost.
I suggest users lose 40% of the karma they deduct (since you want to give different users different weights). For example, if you downvote someone, they lose 5 karma, but you lose 2 karma.
How about the boring simplicity of having downvote limits? Maybe something around one downvote/24 hours—not cumulative.
If you’re feeling generous, maybe add a downvote/24 hours per 1000 karma, with a maximum or 5 downvotes/24 hours.
I’m not opposed to downvote limits, but I think they need to not be too low. There are situations where I am more likely to downvote many things just because I am more heavily moderating. For example, on comments on my own post I care more and am more likely to both upvote and downvote whereas other times I might just not care that much.
This is a solution as well; it is not clear to me though, that it is better than the solution I proposed.