Rude things aren't inherently unproductive.
They are, in part because they predictably make people behave less rationally.
And 1/3 negative karma means that we would get rid of many productive things
I don't agree with your implicit estimate that less than 1/3 of the comments here are net negative contributions. Still, noise would indicate that your conclusion is correct - I'd expect even now some large amount of productive things are hidden from view.
so more downvoting is still an awful idea.
That does not follow (that you thought it followed is indicated by your use of "so"). If you wanted that to follow, you would have to also establish that people here actually do downvote at least 1/3 of the comments here, which is clearly false - even I don't downvote that much.
I assert that people are extremely stingy with their downvotes.
I assert that people are extremely stingy with their downvotes.
I anecdotally second this assertion: I hardly ever downvote. I only downvote comments that I think are egregiously bad, and then not when they're already well buried, which they usually are by the time I get there.
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 85. The previous thread has long passed 500 comments. Comment in the 15th thread until you read chapter 85.
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, 15.
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: