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wedrifid comments on Welcome to Less Wrong! (2012) - Less Wrong
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On the other hand if people agree with your reasons they often upvote it (especially back up towards zero if it dropped negative).
I certainly hope so. I would expect that they disagree with your reasons for downvoting or else they would have not made their comment. It would take a particularly insightful explanation for your vote for them to believe that you influencing others toward thinking their contribution is negative is itself a valuable contribution.
*arch*
Do you think that's a good thing, or just a likely outcome?
Downvoting explanations of downvotes seems like a really bad idea, regardless how you feel about the downvote. It strongly incentives people to not explain themselves, not open themselves up for debates, but just vote and then remove themselves from the discussion.
I don't see how downvoting explanations and more explicit behavior is helpful for rational discourse in any way.
This is exactly the reaction I want to trolls, basic questions outside of dedicated posts, and stupid mistakes. Are downvotes of explanations in those cases also read as an incentive not to post explanations in general?
Speaking for myself, yes. I read it as "don't engage this topic on this site, period".
I agree with downvoting (and ignoring) the types of comments you mentioned, but not explanations of such downvotes. The explanations don't add any noise, so they shouldn't be punished. (Maybe if they got really excessive, but currently I have the impression that too few downvotes are explained, rather than too many.)
Comments can serve as calls to action encouraging others to downvote or priming people with a negative or unintended interpretation of a comment - be it yours or that of someone else -that influence is something to be discouraged. This is not the case with all explanations of downvotes but it certainly describes the effect and often intent of the vast majority of "Downvoted because" declarations. Exceptions include explanations that are requested and occasionally reasons that are legitimately surprising or useful. Obviously also an exception is any time when you actually agree they have a point.
I might well consider an explanation of a downvote on a comment of mine to be a valuable contribution, even if I continue to disagree with the thinking behind it. Actually, that's not uncommon.