fairness means only following the rule that reactions should be proportionate to the initial action.
Of course - each person's reaction was to downvote your post once (ignoring for the moment the issue I've mentioned elsewhere of additional penalties for defending yourself - it's not really relevant in this case since that's theoretically a second 'initial action'). So, what you really mean is the collective response should be proportionate to the initial action. The way the voting system works creates a strange set of incentives - downvoting a post that already has a low score - or a person who already has low karma - does not cost any more (in terms of the cost to the downvote cap) than downvoting a post which is just on the visibility threshold.
Yet it's hard to see how this could be otherwise, particularly if both the downvote cap and karma scores need to be statically calculated.
I've been thinking about that, but didn't want to say anything because its really not my site and I probably couldn't design a better one if I tried. But, yeah, I think the downvote system does warrant some reform, and I have no idea how that would work because it would vary from case to case. Maybe there could be some guidelines advising the community on which general infractions deserve a certain number of downvotes. It could be an interesting project, actually...
The next discussion thread is here.
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 84. The previous thread has passed 500 comments. Comment in the 14th thread until you read chapter 84.
There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author’s Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.)
The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.
As a reminder, it’s often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.
Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically: