SoullessAutomaton comments on LessWrong Boo Vote (Stochastic Downvoting) - Less Wrong

3 Post author: Vladimir_Nesov 22 April 2009 01:18AM

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Comment author: MBlume 22 April 2009 08:26:56AM *  5 points [-]

I would base the division on length -- long comments should be downvoted mercilessly, as they take up more time and more screen real estate -- but this makes sense too.

Comment author: SoullessAutomaton 22 April 2009 09:31:08AM 3 points [-]

A broad community norm against long comments is probably a good idea, anyway. The vast majority of long comments are likely going to be either off-topic, a good idea expressed too verbosely, or something with enough length and quality that it probably should have been a full post.

Comment author: ciphergoth 22 April 2009 11:21:47AM 4 points [-]

I'm pleased to hear someone say that. I worry that my comments are too short, but I do often put work into brevity.

Comment author: thomblake 22 April 2009 03:05:39PM 1 point [-]

I have the opposite intuition. I prefer comments that present a full argument, preferably with links and/or references - those are the ones I tend to upvote. Long comments that drift off-topic, I downvote for being off-topic, not for being long.

Comment author: Jack 22 April 2009 03:24:31PM 3 points [-]

I think you misunderstand the point. Useless comments should be downvoted more readily the longer they are as that means they are a less efficient use of pixels. Shorter comments don't need to be downvoted as much even if they're not the best since they're not polluting the screen as much. In general, the best comments will take up some space but I take it there is always some length at which even a helpful comment deserves to be downvoted.

Comment author: Emile 22 April 2009 09:13:08AM *  1 point [-]

Agreed, I thought about adding that as a second alternative, but skipped it to prevent my comment from getting too long ;-)

Length isn't as much of a problem when the discussion has turned into a back-and forth between two commenters, or in a reply to a question, but still, overall, we should discourage a long, rambling style.