Open Thread Feb 29 - March 6, 2016

Elo

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

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If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threadspage before posting.)

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

It seems clear that whack-a-mole banning is not terribly effective; since the main thing (I think) we want to disincentivize is unproductive mindkilled mass-downvoting, making that less effective (because likely to be undone after a while) might be worth the effort.

I doubt undoing the votes will disincentivize anyone. I suspect that mass-downvoting is either an expressive act or it's the stick in a conditioning exericise (disagree with me and watch your karma go down right now). In both cases undoing the votes many moons later is quite useless.

It wouldn't be so much a matter of disincentivizing Eugen3 etc., (though that might happen) as reincentivizing the people who were downvoted.

7gjm10y

I'm not convinced. I think Eugine wants to win, where winning means making those nasty commie SJWs go away, or at least look bad, so that the glorious Rightness of comments like his own can shine forth. So: not a purely expressive act. I don't think it's a conditioning exercise intended to make disagreeing with Eugine immediately painful, because his actual practice has frequently been to delay the large-scale downvoting and spread it out. Rather, I think he wants (1) to make participation here painful for his victims and/or (2) to make it look as if his victims are generally disliked and disagreed with. He wants to remove them or reduce their credibility.