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Kawoomba comments on [meta] Policy for dealing with users suspected/guilty of mass-downvote harassment? - Less Wrong Discussion

28 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 06 June 2014 05:46AM

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Comment author: Kawoomba 06 June 2014 05:16:35PM 1 point [-]

You're missing the point, you can downvote a comment because you want to see fewer such comments. There is no reason -- absent rules -- that couldn't extend to all of a poster's comments if you want to see fewer comments by that person. There are benefits to sending clear signals. This isn't some official process -- it's simply an expression of your personal preferences, not anyone else's. Your "offender" and "punishment" fixation when conflating "I don't like this behavior" with "this behavior must be punished" is a bit frustrating, given we have rules on a host of issues, but no rule yet on this one. It's simply using your own karma.

Anyways, I'm signing off on this.

Comment author: Tenoke 06 June 2014 05:34:43PM -2 points [-]

You're missing the point that we are not talking about downvotes of specific comments, but downvotes of most comments by an user.

Comment author: Kawoomba 06 June 2014 05:43:36PM 1 point [-]

There is no reason -- absent rules -- that couldn't extend to all of a poster's comments if you want to see fewer comments by that person.

Comment author: Dentin 06 June 2014 07:15:03PM 3 points [-]

The only time I tried this I quickly gave up, because the poster I didn't want to see used the monthly quotes threads to karma boost. A malicious user that's intelligent can pretty much troll however they want and still have positive karma simply by copy/pasting quotes into the the quote threads.

This doesn't really apply to the topic at hand, but the quote threads are a serious karma problem, because they provide an effort-free way to generate huge amounts of karma.

Comment author: Tenoke 06 June 2014 05:48:10PM *  0 points [-]

Yeah, I'm arguing against that mindset as a whole. I'd much rather people only downvote the content they disagree with, and to leave the other comments alone.

Anyway, so you think that it is fine, if for example I got annoyed at you during this discussion and went and downvoted all your unrelated to this comments in order to see fewer comments by you in the future?

Comment author: Kawoomba 06 June 2014 05:53:47PM 0 points [-]

I wouldn't like it, but there is a difference (a rather large one) between not liking it and thinking that person should be punished for it.

I'm not in control of his/her downvote button, he/she is. This topic has come up many times, and yet no consensus has ever been reached. And it wasn't only because of technical problems, either. Your preferences are your own, just leave me out of them, in a nutshell. (I did sign off on this, but didn't want to leave your question unanswered. Stupid red letter symbol!)