= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
beoShaffer comments on LW Women: LW Online - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (590)
I have sent several messages like; to the best of my knowledge, they have always been taken well. Every message I've received like that has made my day; I suggest lowering your estimate of how creepy it actually is.
I do agree with you that such messages are murkier when at least one party could interpret it as romantic, and while that murkiness can be resolved it takes additional effort.
That tends to be the pattern I notice for posts/comments that seem to be well-made; generally, more disagreeing / correcting comments than downvotes, and many more upvotes than comments that only express approval.
What I was wondering was a bit different:
Imagine a forum with no upvotes and downvotes. (It might still have a "report as spam/abuse" button, moderation, and the like — I don't mean that it's completely unfiltered.) It will have some level of people posting comments of agreement and ones of disagreement.
Now, imagine a forum identical to that one, but with upvotes and downvotes added. Some people who otherwise would comment on others' words, instead use a vote button. (And some do both.)
In the second forum, there may be fewer total comments — because many people who would post "I agree!" or "Me too!" or "No way!" or "Shut up!" will instead use the voting mechanism. But does the addition of a voting mechanism absorb proportionately more expressions of approval than disapproval?
(It may be that what I'm thinking of here is the old Usenet annoyance at people who posted merely to agree with another poster — "posting 'me too' like some brain-dead AOLer", as Weird Al put it. Voting mechanisms let us tell people not to post "me too" posts, but maybe some "me too" posts are more rewarding for the person they're responding to.)
One of my first reactions to the relevant part of the OP was thinking of this phenomena and feeling some sympathy for the Usenet old hands. I've been on forums were "me too" posts are common, and while they can sometimes be nice I also think that they can get annoying/distract from useful comment.
Usenet old hand speaking: Me too!
The norm I've noticed around here is to upvote for agreeing and general warm fuzzies, but not to downvote for disagreement alone. Downvoting seems to be reserved for thoughts that are not merely incorrect, but broken in some way. (logically fallacious, for example)
For my own posts, I find I appreciate an upvote as if it were explicit encouragement. I'm wondering if this mental reaction is common, and if so, whether it's limited to the males here. (as a pseudo-"score", I could see this being the case) Perhaps the karma system produces more warm fuzzies for the average man and little-to-nothing for the average woman. With karma being the primary form of social encouragement, that could make for a very different experience between genders.
Request for anecdotal evidence here.
For my own part, I like the karma system precisely because it provides a way to indicate appreciation without cluttering threads with content-free approval posts. That is probably the usenetter in me speaking. (tangent: I miss the days when usenet was where all the interesting conversations happened. Oh well.)
I may be a somewhat atypical woman, but I appreciate upvotes. I do find it frustrating if I post something I think is substantial and it only gets upvotes. I'm here for conversation, not just approval.
Hrm. I think I agree on the frustration bit, but I'm unsure what to do about it.
Datapoint: I almost didn't post this because it felt too me-too-ish. If you hadn't been responding to me, I probably wouldn't have.
I'm a woman, and I feel exactly as you do, so it isn't limited to males.
I just don't understand the downvote/upvote thing, especially if the norm is/should be for broken thoughts.
When I get downvoted (or upvoted), I often don't get a comment explaining why. So it's unclear where I'm broken (or what I'm doing right). That's frustrating and doesn't help me increase my value to the community.
It'd be nice to have downvoters supply a reason why, in order to improve the original.
A downvote without explanation can basically be translated as "Lurk Moar, Noob"
When I downvote without explanation it's because I want less of what I'm downvoting AND I don't want the forums to be cluttered with explanations of what should be obvious.
I sometimes downvote without explanation if the post was highly upvoted and I thought it was merely decent.