CCC comments on A few remarks about mass-downvoting - Less Wrong

17 Post author: gjm 13 February 2014 05:06PM

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Comment author: Jiro 19 March 2014 03:06:01PM *  0 points [-]

My last 100 comments contain exactly one comment that is not downvoted. I counted falenas108's and he has at least 50 comments in a row without one comment that is not downvoted. Starting with his first downvoted comment before the date of the above post, gwm has a string of 38 comments that are all downvoted, yet of his past 5 most recent comments (after he says the downvoter gave up) there are no downvotes.

It's obvious that we're all the victim of mass downvoting, and whatever Eliezer did didn't work. The system has to at least keep track of who downvoted which post, and it shouldn't be too hard for anyone with database access to get a count.

I suggest a simple change: for any logged-in user's own comments, display the name(s) of the people who downvoted him. I suspect that would fix the problem.

Comment author: CCC 24 March 2014 11:57:58AM 0 points [-]

I suggest a simple change: for any logged-in user's own comments, display the name(s) of the people who downvoted him. I suspect that would fix the problem.

How?

Let us say you suddenly discover that a user called (say) EvilDownvoter had been downvoting all your posts. How exactly does that help stop him?

Comment author: Jiro 06 April 2014 08:47:31AM *  0 points [-]
  1. If they're also posting comments, revealing what they are doing would discredit them as a legitimate commentator, especially if history shows that they have an argument with me that they are trying to settle by forcing me off the site.
  2. If they're not posting comments, that means they have a single purpose account, which is an obvious troll.
  3. It would be possible to complain about them to an admin by name rather than complaining based on a statistical analysis of one's posts. It would be much harder for an admin to justify inaction, and much more likely for him to lose status given inaction, than if no name could be provided.
  4. Availability bias and related biases would make it easier to gain sympathy from others if the situation is easier to understand (no need to complain about Poisson distributions) and more specific (has a name attached).
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