Upvoted :)
I'm new here too, and have been curious about this. Like you, I've been hesitant to give down votes. But I think that if I ever down vote, it will only be when (1) someone seems inappropriately confident in what they're saying or (2) a comment was needlessly (and it's always needlessly) mean and condescending to someone else.
Also, I wouldn't down vote a reply to one of my own comments, since I might be biased. I'd down vote only as an objective observer of other conversations.
As for upvotes, I'm a bit more generous with discussion posts than comments. It takes more time to come up with a good post than a good comment. For longer posts, it would be cool to have an option to give the writer between 1-3 karma. I sometimes reread posts from the Rationality ebook on here and am surprised to see they have only 30 or so karma points and wish I could give them more than one thumbs-up.
There are many other categories suitable for downvoting which I've seen over the years. I've seen blatantly incoherent streams of thought, comments containing 'facts' known to be flat out wrong, posts with an extremely high percentage of spelling and grammatical errors, and material I simply don't want to see here (rape and pedophilia related stuff springs to mind.) These are just the categories that spring to mind at the moment.
Only downvoting based on confidence and 'being mean' may cover most cases, but it still leaves a lot of significant bases uncov...
I've only recently joined the LessWrong community, and I've been having a blast reading through posts and making the occasional comment. So far, I've received a few karma points, and I’m pretty sure I’m more proud of them than of all the work I did in high school put together.
My question is simple, and aimed a little more towards the veterans of LessWrong:
What are the guidelines for upvoting and downvoting? What makes a comment good, and what makes one bad? Is there somewhere I can go to find this out (I've looked, but there doesn't seem to be a guide on LessWrong already up. On the other hand, I lose my glasses while wearing them, so…)
Additionally, why do I sometimes see discussion posts with many comments but few upvotes, and others with many upvotes but few comments? If a post is worth commenting on, isn't it worth upvoting? I feel as though my map is missing a few pages here.
Not only would having a clear discussion of this help me review the comments of others better, it would also help me understand what I’m being reinforced for on each of my comments, so I can alter my behaviors accordingly.
I want to help keep this a well-kept garden, but I’m struggling to figure out how to trim the hedges.