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Rain comments on Open Thread June 2010, Part 2 - Less Wrong
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I've recently begun downvoting comments that are at -2 rating regardless of my feelings about them. I instituted this policy after observing that a significant number of comments reach -2 but fail to be pushed over to -3, which I'm attributing to the threshold being too much of a psychological barrier for many people to penetrate; they don't want to be 'the one to push the button'. This is an extension of my RL policy of taking 'the last' of something laid out for communal use (coffee, donuts, cups, etc.). If the comment thread really needs to be visible, I expect others will vote it back up.
Edit: It's likely that most of the negative response to this comment centers around the phrase "regardless of my feelings about them." I now consider this to be too strong a statement with regards to my implemented actions. I do read the comment to make sure I don't consider it any good, and doubt I would perversely vote something down even if I wanted to see more of it.
I wish you wouldn't do that, and stuck instead with the generally approved norm of downvoting to mean "I'd prefer to see fewer comments like this" and upvoting "I'd like to see more like this".
You're deliberately participating in information cascades, and thereby undermining the filtering process. As an antidote, I recommend using the anti-kibitzer script (you can do that through your Preferences page).
I disagree that that's the formula used for comments that exist within the range -2 to 2. Within that range, from what I've observed of voting patterns, it seems far more likely that the equation is related to what value the comment "should be at." If many people used anti-kibitzing, I doubt this would remain a problem.
I believe your hypothesis and decision are possibly correct, but if they are, you should expect your downvotes to often be corrected upwards again. If this doesn't happen, then you are wrong and shouldn't apply this heuristic.
Morendil doesn't say it's what actually happens, he merely says it should happen this way, and that you in particular should behave this way.
I thought of doing this after reading the article Composting Fruitless Debates and making a voted-up suggestion to downvote below threshold.
I'm using it as an excuse to overcome my general laziness with regards to voting, which has the typical pattern of one vote (up or down) per hundreds of comments read.
Edit: And due to remembering Eliezer's comments about moderation.
I don't do huge amounts of voting, and I admit that if a post I like has what I consider to be "enough" votes, I don't upvote it further. I can certainly change this policy if there's reason to think upvoting everything I'd like to see more of would help make LW work better.
I am tempted to downvote this comment from -2 just for the irony, but I don't prefer to see fewer comments like this, so I won't.
Besides, the default cutoff is at -4, not -3.
After logging out and attempting to view a thread with a comment at exactly -3, it showed that comment to be below threshold. I doubt that it retains customized settings after logging out, and I do not believe that I changed mine in the first place, leading me to believe that -3 is indeed the threshold.
Also, my original comment was at -3 within minutes of posting.
The default was -4 logged in when I joined last year - perhaps it's different for non-logged-in people.
Also, that makes me guess people changed their votes to aim your comment at -2.
Here is the change. Also, the number refers to the lowest visible comments, not the highest invisible comments.