Hm. This may be fuzzy memory on my part, but I thought I remembered downvoting this post, seeing it at −5, and now it’s at 0 and I haven’t downvoted it. I really hope that’s fuzzy memory on my part.
Downvoted the post based on the intervention you described. Normally I’d have upvoted.
I do want to stress that I’m not certain I downvoted the post before I wrote this comment. It’s plausible that 5 people upvoted the post because they wanted it to be visible. That’s still an intervention I’m uneasy about, but the unease is much lower.
Basically, if anyone was asked to vote the post up, rather than seeing the post and thinking “I want more of this on LW.” I apologize for not making that implication clearer. I’ve only seen this post at 0 or negative karma (but I’m not tracking it closely), which seems to me like people not wanting it to be negative rather than roughly equal groups liking and disliking it.
I upvoted the post because it had negative karma, and was not a post that I thought should be at negative karma.
In general I vote posts/comments in the direction I think their karma should be at. Thus for instance I downvoted Clippy’s comment above because I did not think it was so insightful that it merited 20+ karma. I would not have downvoted it if it were at 0 karma.
I assume many people take this approach (it fits in nicely with consequentialism) so this probably explains what you saw.
Downvoted the post based on the intervention you described. Normally I’d have upvoted.
I do want to stress that I’m not certain I downvoted the post before I wrote this comment. It’s plausible that 5 people upvoted the post because they wanted it to be visible. That’s still an intervention I’m uneasy about, but the unease is much lower.
At least one of those five people does exist. That’s me, who found the post at −5 and left it at −4.
Seconded. Found it at −1, upvoted to 0. And it’s at −3 now…
What intervention remains if the votes were not distorted?
Basically, if anyone was asked to vote the post up, rather than seeing the post and thinking “I want more of this on LW.” I apologize for not making that implication clearer. I’ve only seen this post at 0 or negative karma (but I’m not tracking it closely), which seems to me like people not wanting it to be negative rather than roughly equal groups liking and disliking it.
I upvoted the post because it had negative karma, and was not a post that I thought should be at negative karma.
In general I vote posts/comments in the direction I think their karma should be at. Thus for instance I downvoted Clippy’s comment above because I did not think it was so insightful that it merited 20+ karma. I would not have downvoted it if it were at 0 karma.
I assume many people take this approach (it fits in nicely with consequentialism) so this probably explains what you saw.