I like the idea of trying this as an optional feature, either on a user opt-in level, or a thread opt-in level similar to how agreement voting started out. I think that would provide a lot of the value of upvotes in a comment thread and potentially remove a lot of the downsides, and I think that’s definitely worth exploring—you should submit the idea! (Maybe after figuring out whether user-level or thread-level would fit better)
I do think the downvote is useful as well. While you can again get cascading effects (Something gets downvoted, people are predisposed to think negatively of it, people are more likely to downvote) I think it’s a good thing for people to be able to downvote things they disagree with. One major benefit of this is that new people to the forum can see when an idea doesn’t match the EA consensus on an issue. This is a good thing, for non-groupthink reasons. Some ideas, for instance, are just really bad internet-crackpot takes, and I wouldn’t want someone new to the forum to think that we agreed with them.
Other ideas are not internet-crackpot tier, but EA’s disagree with them generally—I think it’s helpful for people to know that too, so they can understand what EA’s generally believe, whether they then agree with those views or not. (If not, it would be a good signal that better arguments for this idea would be a worthy use of time!)
That said, I think there should be a general norm of explaining a downvote if you’re downvoting something which doesn’t already have one attached, so people don’t just get downvoted with no idea why. I think EA does better about this than most places but is not perfect.
I think someone made an internet plugin once that hides the karma score of each comment… But not sure what it’s called or whether it’s kept up to date!
That said, I think there should be a general norm of explaining a downvote if you’re downvoting something which doesn’t already have one attached, so people don’t just get downvoted with no idea why. I think EA does better about this than most places but is not perfect.
I like the idea of trying this as an optional feature, either on a user opt-in level, or a thread opt-in level similar to how agreement voting started out. I think that would provide a lot of the value of upvotes in a comment thread and potentially remove a lot of the downsides, and I think that’s definitely worth exploring—you should submit the idea! (Maybe after figuring out whether user-level or thread-level would fit better)
I do think the downvote is useful as well. While you can again get cascading effects (Something gets downvoted, people are predisposed to think negatively of it, people are more likely to downvote) I think it’s a good thing for people to be able to downvote things they disagree with. One major benefit of this is that new people to the forum can see when an idea doesn’t match the EA consensus on an issue. This is a good thing, for non-groupthink reasons. Some ideas, for instance, are just really bad internet-crackpot takes, and I wouldn’t want someone new to the forum to think that we agreed with them.
Other ideas are not internet-crackpot tier, but EA’s disagree with them generally—I think it’s helpful for people to know that too, so they can understand what EA’s generally believe, whether they then agree with those views or not. (If not, it would be a good signal that better arguments for this idea would be a worthy use of time!)
That said, I think there should be a general norm of explaining a downvote if you’re downvoting something which doesn’t already have one attached, so people don’t just get downvoted with no idea why. I think EA does better about this than most places but is not perfect.
I think someone made an internet plugin once that hides the karma score of each comment… But not sure what it’s called or whether it’s kept up to date!
https://​​ea.greaterwrong.com/​​ has a feature which does this; it’s an eye on the bottom right.
Thank you!
Yes I agree.