Squark comments on Open thread, 21-27 April 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
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What do you mean by "fighting mediocrity"? Should I interpret it literally as "I don't like mediocre people"? Or as "I want to reward excellence"? If it is the latter you are aiming it, use upvotes, not downvotes (for ideal rational agents the two might be symmetric, but for people they aren't: the emotional signal from getting a downvoting is very different from the emotional signal of not getting an upvote).
Exactly, and this is a reason why downvoting is important (and shouldn't be systematically countered): it allows scaring people away (who are not of our tribe). A forum culture that would merely abstain from upvoting is worse at scaring people away than one that actively downvotes.
(Sorry, I heavily edited the grandparent since the first revision.)