= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Viliam_Bur comments on [meta] Policy for dealing with users suspected/guilty of mass-downvote harassment? - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
Comments (239)
I think people go to Slate Star Codex, because that's where Scott writes his articles, not because of the voting mechanism.
From the paper:
Seen that at LW a few times. At some moment the user's karma became so low they couldn't post anymore, or perhaps an admin banned them. From my point of view, problem solved.
I think it would be useful to distinguish between systems where the downvoted comments remain visible, and where the downvoted comments are hidden.
I am reading another website, where the downvoted comments remain proudly visible, with the number of downvotes, and yes, it seem to enrage the user to write more and more of the same stuff. My hypothesis is that some people perceive downvotes as rewards (maybe they love to make people angry, or they feel they are on a crusade and the downvotes mean they successfully hurt the enemy), and these people are encouraged by downvoting. Hiding the comment, and removing the ability to comment, now that is a punishment.
When I think others are wrong, and in particular, the groupthink is wrong, I take downvotes as a greater indication that someone needs to get their head straight, and it could be them or me. Let's see.
I can think of at least one case where I criticized someone for something I thought was disgraceful, after his post was massively upvoted. I was massively downvoted in turn, but eventually convinced the original poster that they had crossed a line in their original post. Or at least he so indicated. Maybe he was just humoring the crazy person.
Downvotes are a signal. Big downvotes are a big signal.
Maybe it's not about hurting people. Maybe it's about identifying contradiction as the place to look for bad ideas that need fixing.
A bog-standard troll wants attention and drama. Downvotes are evidence of attention and drama.
"some people perceive downvotes as rewards"
Is this just a dig at people vehemently defending downvoted posts or are you serious in calling this a hypothesis?
To trolls any attention (including downvotes) is a reward.
Completely serious. Just realise that different people have different goals and/or different models of the world.
Downvote is merely a signal for "some people here don't like this". If you care about opinions of LW readers, and you want to be liked by them, then downvotes hurt. Otherwise, they don't.
For some sick person, making other people unhappy may be inherently desirable, and downvotes are an evidence they succeeded. Imagine some kind of psychopath that derives pleasure from frustrating strangers on internet. (Some people suggest that this actually explains a lot of internet trolling.) Or someone may model typical LW users -- or, in other forum, typical users of the forum X -- as their enemies whose opinions have to be opposed, and downvotes are an evidence that they succeeded to write an "inconvenient truth". Imagine a crackpot, or a heavily mindkilled person. Or a spammer.