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LHJablonski comments on The 5-Second Level - Less Wrong
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I know that I'll probably be downvoted again, but nevertheless.
Sorry, but I don't feel that I have this freedom on LW. And I feel people moralize here especially using the downvote function.
To give a concrete example of Eliezer himself
http://lesswrong.com/lw/1ww/undiscriminating_skepticism/
I politely asked for clarification only to be not only ignored but also downvoted to -4:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/1ww/undiscriminating_skepticism/1t7r
On another comment I presented evidence to the contrary(a video interview) to be downvoted to -15: http://lesswrong.com/lw/1ww/undiscriminating_skepticism/1r5v
So when just asking the most basic rationality question(why do you believe what you believe) and presenting evidence that contradicts a point is downvoted I don't feel that LW is about rationality as much as others like to believe. And I also feel that basic elements of politeness are missing and yes, I feel like I have to walk on eggs.
Do you think that people use the downvote to tell another user that they are a terrible person... or do they simply use it to express disagreement with a statement?
I think probably both happen, but it's tilted heavily toward the latter. Feel free to downvote if you disagree. :)
There's another possibility. I downvote when I felt that reading the post was a waste of my time and I also believe it wasted most other people's time.
(This isn't a veiled statement about Roland. I do not recall voting on any of his posts before.)
The problem with the downvote is that it mixes the messages "I don't agree" with "I don't think others should see this". There is no way to say "I don't agree, but that post was worth thinking about", is there? Short of posting a comment of your own, that is.
That's exactly what I do. I try to downvote comments based on how they're written (if they're rude or don't make sense, I downvote them) instead of what they're written about. (Though I may upvote comments based on agreeing with the content.)
That's exactly what I do too. (Although my downvote threshold is likely a tad more sensitive. :P)
Likely. Mine will probably become more sensitive with time.
I think there is a positive outcome from the system as it is, at least for sufficiently optimistic people. The feature is that it should be obvious that downvoting is mixed with those and other things, which helps me not take anything personally.
Downvotes could be anything, and individuals have different criteria for voting, and as I am inclined to take things personally, this obviousness helps me. If I knew 50% of downvotes meant "I think the speaker is a bad person", every downvote might make me feel bad. As downvotes currently could mean so many things, I am able to shrug them off. They could currently mean: the speaker is bad, the comment is bad, I disagree with the comment, I expect better from this speaker, it's not fair/useful for this comment to be voted so highly rated compared to a similar adjacent comment that I would rather people read instead/I would like to promote as the communal norm, etc.
If one has an outlook that is pessimistic in a particular way, any mixing of single messages to multiple meanings will cause one to overly react as if the worst meaning is intended by a message, and this sort of person would be most helped by ensuring each message has only one meaning.
I've been known to upvote in such cases, if the post is otherwise neutral-or-better. I like to see things here that are worth thinking about.