I think this way of voting is completely fucked up.
upvote = I liked it
downvote = I disliked it
spitevote = I don’t really like/dislike it, I just resent that others dislike/like it
If you like it then fucking upvote it, and if you don’t like it then fucking downvote it, but don’t do this “I am gonna let you vote first, and then whatever you choose, I will do the exact opposite so that your vote gets cancelled”. You are just adding noise, and if many people do this, then the outcomes will depend on the order people voted—an article that divides the audience 50:50 may end up upvoted or downvoted depending on whether the vote order was “downvoters, then spitevoters, then upvoters” or “upvoters, then spitevoters, then downvoters”.
EDIT:
I agree that the current system has the problem that essentially karma = appeal × visibility, so that a “slightly better than meh” content with lots of visibility can score lots of total karma. So maybe there should be a third way to vote, some kind of “mehvote” that would give +0 karma but also somehow drag the total karma towards zero, so that a comment with 5 upvotes and 5 mehvotes would result in less than 5 karma, but if it later gets additional 3 downvotes, it would still remain positive. Not sure about the exact formula, but the idea is that the result is positive if upvotes outweigh the downvotes, negative if it’s the other way round, exactly U-D if there are no mehvotes, and adding the mehvotes brings the result asymptotically closer to zero.
Feedback should be genuine, and not include strategic thinking about other people’s feedback. You can’t have the wisdom of crowd if too many people are concerned with what other people think. Maybe adding the third vote option is necessary, I am not sure. As a side effect, it would help distinguish between “I haven’t voted on this yet” and “my vote is: meh”.
It seems like your opinion here is carrying over from a pretty different voting mechanism (in political elections, people only vote once, and the point of the vote is to choose a single thing). Here, people can change their vote willy nilly, and the point of the vote is to get a general sense of how good something is, and people can constantly adjust their vote in response to other people if they want.
The karma = appeal + visibility thing makes your preferred way of voting an absolute dealbreaker in my opinion – it automatically outputs a wrong answer to the question I think voting is trying to answer (“which posts or comments are best?”). Naively, it results in any slightly good post getting the same amount of karma as a great post. (Or, now that we’ve added Strong Votes, it only allows two clusters of karma scores for anything that most people agree are good)
I think it’s plausible we should change the whole voting system to accommodate the feedback concern you’re advocating here, but IMO you are advocating for basically switching to a new voting system, not “properly” implementing the current one.
I think it is a desirably property of a voting mechanism (whether here or in politics) that your vote should reflect your opinion on the issue, instead of… some strategic calculation that includes other people’s votes.
Here, people can change their vote willy nilly, and [...] constantly adjust their vote in response to other people if they want.
In theory yes, but is this how you really want to spend your time? Revisiting the old discussions and reconsidering your old votes in light of the new votes from other users...
IMO you are advocating for basically switching to a new voting system, not “properly” implementing the current one.
I have a strong opinion on “don’t downvote the content you like, and don’t upvote the content you dislike”. Other than this, I am quite happy with the voting mechanism as it exists now.
However, if spitevoting becomes a common practice, then I’d prefer to see the voting mechanism changed rather than abused. If other people (not me) feel a strong desire to express that some content is mediocre (in a way different than abstaining from voting), I would prefer that they have a first-class option to do that, instead of strategically abusing the existing options.
But usually… I observe that people underestimate the costs of what they ask for, or perhaps just act on instinct, and set their prices way way way too high. If the nonconformist crowd ever wants to get anything done together, we need to move in the direction of joining groups and staying there at least a little more easily. Even in the face of annoyances and imperfections! Even in the face of unresponsiveness to our own better ideas!
The voting system is overall doing its job well. Great posts reliably find their way to the top, we’re not overrun by newbies taking all the attention (I claim), and a number of other good things.
If I find out a lot of people this whole time have been voting using an algorithm that seems bad to me… it’s not my favorite thing, but I can live with it, clearly. I won’t escalate very much on that fight, and I don’t think it’s worth it to escalate too much.
I don’t mean with this comment to take an object level stance on the question at hand.
My strong language is an expression of annoyance, not anger, just to avoid misunderstanding.
The effects of a voting system depend on how people use it. For example, you could have exactly the same voting mechanism and a group norm of “upvote everything that contains your ingroup’s applause lights, and downvote everything that contains your outgroup’s applause lights” and the effects would be quite different.
If it becomes common knowledge that “you should sometimes downvote the stuff you like, and upvote the stuff you don’t like”, gods help us all. I am trying to fight this… emerging group norm.
On reflection, “downvoting a comment you like but not too much” is the lesser problem here. What makes my blood boil is people strategically upvoting comments that “are stupid, but I think that −10 karma goes a bit too far”. But I assume the same norm covers both.
By the way, I think (~80%) you were the one who once made a comment mentioning that you consider current karma in your votes. That comment was what got me thinking about this in the first place.
That makes sense. I was thinking of saying something in an answer/comment. I agree with many of the critiques in this thread, has been pretty helpful, so thanks for setting it up.
In recent election in my country, there was a political coalition that was new and quite popular in my bubble. According to the law, they needed 7% of votes to get into the parliament. And many people I know were like “they are safely above the limit, so although I prefer them, I will strategically vote for one of the less popular but still okay parties instead, to help them also pass the limit”. Then all the votes were counted and the coalition received 6.96%. I personally know at least three people who then regretted their vote.
So I may be a bit more sensitive about this topic than usual. But this “voting to balance other votes” is not a new idea, and I already opposed it before.
I think this way of voting is completely fucked up.
upvote = I liked it
downvote = I disliked it
spitevote = I don’t really like/dislike it, I just resent that others dislike/like it
If you like it then fucking upvote it, and if you don’t like it then fucking downvote it, but don’t do this “I am gonna let you vote first, and then whatever you choose, I will do the exact opposite so that your vote gets cancelled”. You are just adding noise, and if many people do this, then the outcomes will depend on the order people voted—an article that divides the audience 50:50 may end up upvoted or downvoted depending on whether the vote order was “downvoters, then spitevoters, then upvoters” or “upvoters, then spitevoters, then downvoters”.
EDIT:
I agree that the current system has the problem that essentially karma = appeal × visibility, so that a “slightly better than meh” content with lots of visibility can score lots of total karma. So maybe there should be a third way to vote, some kind of “mehvote” that would give +0 karma but also somehow drag the total karma towards zero, so that a comment with 5 upvotes and 5 mehvotes would result in less than 5 karma, but if it later gets additional 3 downvotes, it would still remain positive. Not sure about the exact formula, but the idea is that the result is positive if upvotes outweigh the downvotes, negative if it’s the other way round, exactly U-D if there are no mehvotes, and adding the mehvotes brings the result asymptotically closer to zero.
Feedback should be genuine, and not include strategic thinking about other people’s feedback. You can’t have the wisdom of crowd if too many people are concerned with what other people think. Maybe adding the third vote option is necessary, I am not sure. As a side effect, it would help distinguish between “I haven’t voted on this yet” and “my vote is: meh”.
It seems like your opinion here is carrying over from a pretty different voting mechanism (in political elections, people only vote once, and the point of the vote is to choose a single thing). Here, people can change their vote willy nilly, and the point of the vote is to get a general sense of how good something is, and people can constantly adjust their vote in response to other people if they want.
The karma = appeal + visibility thing makes your preferred way of voting an absolute dealbreaker in my opinion – it automatically outputs a wrong answer to the question I think voting is trying to answer (“which posts or comments are best?”). Naively, it results in any slightly good post getting the same amount of karma as a great post. (Or, now that we’ve added Strong Votes, it only allows two clusters of karma scores for anything that most people agree are good)
I think it’s plausible we should change the whole voting system to accommodate the feedback concern you’re advocating here, but IMO you are advocating for basically switching to a new voting system, not “properly” implementing the current one.
I think it is a desirably property of a voting mechanism (whether here or in politics) that your vote should reflect your opinion on the issue, instead of… some strategic calculation that includes other people’s votes.
In theory yes, but is this how you really want to spend your time? Revisiting the old discussions and reconsidering your old votes in light of the new votes from other users...
I have a strong opinion on “don’t downvote the content you like, and don’t upvote the content you dislike”. Other than this, I am quite happy with the voting mechanism as it exists now.
However, if spitevoting becomes a common practice, then I’d prefer to see the voting mechanism changed rather than abused. If other people (not me) feel a strong desire to express that some content is mediocre (in a way different than abstaining from voting), I would prefer that they have a first-class option to do that, instead of strategically abusing the existing options.
Compare to the LW FAQ:
I am inclined to take your strong language as expressive, kind of like Shia LaBeouf roaring at me.
But in case not, I think it’s good to remember Your Price For Joining.
The voting system is overall doing its job well. Great posts reliably find their way to the top, we’re not overrun by newbies taking all the attention (I claim), and a number of other good things.
If I find out a lot of people this whole time have been voting using an algorithm that seems bad to me… it’s not my favorite thing, but I can live with it, clearly. I won’t escalate very much on that fight, and I don’t think it’s worth it to escalate too much.
I don’t mean with this comment to take an object level stance on the question at hand.
My strong language is an expression of annoyance, not anger, just to avoid misunderstanding.
The effects of a voting system depend on how people use it. For example, you could have exactly the same voting mechanism and a group norm of “upvote everything that contains your ingroup’s applause lights, and downvote everything that contains your outgroup’s applause lights” and the effects would be quite different.
If it becomes common knowledge that “you should sometimes downvote the stuff you like, and upvote the stuff you don’t like”, gods help us all. I am trying to fight this… emerging group norm.
On reflection, “downvoting a comment you like but not too much” is the lesser problem here. What makes my blood boil is people strategically upvoting comments that “are stupid, but I think that −10 karma goes a bit too far”. But I assume the same norm covers both.
(Thx for the reply, that makes sense. Will try to get around to writing my own answer on this thread soon.)
By the way, I think (~80%) you were the one who once made a comment mentioning that you consider current karma in your votes. That comment was what got me thinking about this in the first place.
That makes sense. I was thinking of saying something in an answer/comment. I agree with many of the critiques in this thread, has been pretty helpful, so thanks for setting it up.
Thanks for being unfiltered here; I definitely want to know if others think this is a bad thing to do. I share the intuition (at least somewhat).
In recent election in my country, there was a political coalition that was new and quite popular in my bubble. According to the law, they needed 7% of votes to get into the parliament. And many people I know were like “they are safely above the limit, so although I prefer them, I will strategically vote for one of the less popular but still okay parties instead, to help them also pass the limit”. Then all the votes were counted and the coalition received 6.96%. I personally know at least three people who then regretted their vote.
So I may be a bit more sensitive about this topic than usual. But this “voting to balance other votes” is not a new idea, and I already opposed it before.