Comment on Upcoming LW Changes

Thu, 11 Feb 2016 15:18:16 GMT

What gets called "retributive voting" is when you vote something down not because of its own (de)merits but because of its author. That's bad for LW no matter who does it. Someone who does it much is (I suggest) ipso facto not a good guy any more.

That's the modern Less Wrongian perspective. Prior to Eugine's ban, there was, in fact, some general support for the idea of getting rid of persistently bad users via user-based downvotes via the karma system. The Overton Window was shifted by Eugine's ban (and his subsequent and repeated reappearances, complete with the same behaviors).

I have never seen anyone defending such behaviour as "karma system working as intended"

You're either newer than I thought, or didn't pay attention. There was a -lot- of defense of this during Eugine's ban by people worried that Less Wrong would be destroyed by bad users. (They by and large supported Eugine's ban, as they objected to the automation of it, and also I think didn't want to die on the hill of defending an extremely unpopular figure.)

Discuss