I've received several PMs from different users that would like to continue a discussion, but would not do it publicly -- they were afraid to be received negatively, or in other words, "negative karma".
I thought people on LW would be able to look past insignificant and shallow virtual ratings that I. personally, cannot tell what their meaning is. My own karma fluctuates between -15 to 15 and I'm perfectly fine with that; but other people seem to view it as some steps toward hell.
I thought I could escape all the usual nonsense surrounding discussions here, but I think I might be wrong.
It may also be not that they think that they are talking about a unwelcome subject, but only that they recognize that not every conversation needs to be held publicly and recorded for posterity. If they want to talk about the weather, they should not do it in a thread -- not because it will be downvoted, but because it is rather rude to broadcast every conversation when we have a number of perfectly acceptable ways to hold conversations without distracting the entire site.
Of course, if "negative karma" was what they were really worried about, an...
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.
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