I’m new to this discussion, so please excuse if this point has been discussed before: Perhaps it would be helpful to allow LW users to send optional (?) and anonymous messages when downvoting. I think, what is inefficient or even harsh about downvotes is that you cannot judge (1) whether the downvoter is actually in the position to judge you and (2) what the exact reason for the downvote is. It’s a bit like the (sometimes anxiety inducing) exercise of reading social cues, but it is in this case even more difficult due to the abstraction to a number.
Edit: Perhaps the downvote could also provide some anonymized information like karma, comment count and account creation date.
I just had another idea which may or may not be worthwhile to look into: How about allowing LW users to remove a downvote that they have received in case they see it as unjustified? I’m not entirely sure what all implications of that would be, but at least people would be able to recover from a negative score after they have corrected their comment for example.
[I apologize if this is considered lower-quality content, but I felt this was too big for an open thread post, and Discussion is currently the next-lowest option.]
Inspired by the recent discussion surrounding Lesswrong, Effective Altruism Forum and Slate Star Codex: Harm Reduction, this thread is intended for brainstorming ideas to improve Less Wrong, and also for including polls with your ideas as an easy way to get an estimate of what people in the community think of them.
Information on putting polls in comments can be found here. Please be thoughtful about how you word your poll options, and (in the case of multiple-choice polls) include a "no vote" or equivalent option so that people who just want to see the poll results won't be forced into picking an option they don't really support.
Thanks to everyone who shares ideas and everyone who takes the time to think about them and vote!