This is a minor point in some ways but I think explicitly stating âI downvoted this postâ can say quite a lot (especially when coming from someone with a senior position in the community).
I ran the Forum for 3+ years (and, caveat, worked with Max). This is a complicated question.
Something Iâve seen many times: A post or comment is downvoted, and the author writes a comment asking why people downvoted (often seeming pretty confused/âdispirited).
Some people really hate anonymous downvotes. Iâve heard multiple suggestions that we remove anonymity from votes, or require people to input a reason before downvoting (which is then presumably sent to the author), or just establish an informal culture where downvotes are expected to come with comments.
So I donât think Max was necessarily being impolite here, especially since he and Luke are colleagues who know each other well. Instead, he was doing something that some people want a lot more of and other people donât want at all. This seems like a matter of competing access needs (different people wanting different things from a shared resource).
In the end, I think itâs down to individual users to take their best guess at whether saying âI downvotedâ or âI upvotedâ would be helpful in a given case. And Iâm still not sure whether having more such comments would be a net positive â probably depends on circumstance.
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Max having a senior position in the community is also a complicated thing. On the one hand, thereâs a risk that anything he says will be taken very seriously and lead to reactions he wouldnât want. On the other hand, it seems good for leaders to share their honest opinions on public platforms (rather than doing everything via DM or deliberately softening their views).
There are still ways to write better or worse comments, but I thought Maxâs was reasonable given the balancing act heâs trying to do (and the massive support Lukeâs post had gotten already â Iâd feel differently if Max had been joining a pile-on or something).
I think the problem isnât with saying you downvoted a post and why (I personally share the view that people should aim to explain their downvotes).
The problem is the actual reason:
I think youâre pointing to some important issues⊠However, I worry that youâre conflating a few pretty different dimensions, so I downvoted this post.
The message that, for me, stands out from this is âIf you have an important idea but canât present it perfectlyâitâs better not to write at all.â Which I think most of us would not endorse.
I didnât get that message at all. If someone tells me they downvoted something I wrote, my default takeaway is âoh, I could have been more clearâ or âhuh, maybe I need to add something that was missingâ â not âyikes, I shouldnât have written thisâ. *
I read Maxâs comment as âI thought this wasnât written very clearly/âgot some things wrongâ, not âI think you shouldnât have written this at allâ. The latter is, to me, almost the definition of a strong downvote.
If someone sees a post they think (a) points to important issues, and (b) gets important things wrong, any of upvote/âdownvote/âdecline-to-vote seems reasonable to me.
*This is partly because Iâve stopped feeling very nervous about Forum posts after years of experience. I know plenty of people who do have the âyikesâ reaction. But thatâs where the usersâ identities and relationship comes into play â Iâd feel somewhat differently had Max said the same thing to a new poster.
I donât share your view about what a downvote means. However, regardless of what I think, it doesnât actually have any fixed meaning beyond that which people a assign to itâso itâd be interesting to have some stats on how people on the forum interpret it.
But thatâs where the usersâ identities and relationship comes into play â Iâd feel somewhat differently had Max said the same thing to a new poster.
Most(?) readers wonât know who either of them is, not to mention their relationship.
I donât share your view about what a downvote means.
What does a downvote mean to you? If it means âyou shouldnât have written thisâ, what does a strong downvote mean to you? The same thing, but with more emphasis?
Itâd be interesting to have some stats on how people on the forum interpret it.
Why not create a poll? I would, but Iâm not sure exactly which question youâd want asked.
Most(?) readers wonât know who either of them is, not to mention their relationship.
Which brings up another question â to what extent should a comment be written for an author vs. the audience?
Maxâs comment seemed very directed at Luke â it was mostly about the style of Lukeâs writing and his way of drawing conclusions. Other comments feel more audience-directed.
Personally, I primarily downvote posts/âcomments where I generally think âreading this post/âcomment will on average make forum readers be worse at thinking about this problem than if they didnât read this post/âcomment, assuming that the time spent reading this post/âcomment is free.â
I basically never strong downvote posts unless itâs obvious spam or otherwise an extremely bad offender in the âworsens thinkingâ direction.
Itâs been over a week so I guess I should answer even if I donât have time for a longer reply.
What does a downvote mean to you? If it means âyou shouldnât have written thisâ, what does a strong downvote mean to you? The same thing, but with more emphasis?
I think so, but Iâm not very confident.
to what extent should a comment be written for an author vs. the audience?
I donât think private conversations can exist on a public platform. If itâs not a DM, thereâs always an audience, and in most contexts, Iâd expect much of a commentâs impact to come from its effects on that audience.
Why not create a poll?
The polls in that specific group look like they have a very small and probably unrepresentative sample size. Though I donât weâll be able to get a much larger one on such a question, I guess.
I ran the Forum for 3+ years (and, caveat, worked with Max). This is a complicated question.
Something Iâve seen many times: A post or comment is downvoted, and the author writes a comment asking why people downvoted (often seeming pretty confused/âdispirited).
Some people really hate anonymous downvotes. Iâve heard multiple suggestions that we remove anonymity from votes, or require people to input a reason before downvoting (which is then presumably sent to the author), or just establish an informal culture where downvotes are expected to come with comments.
So I donât think Max was necessarily being impolite here, especially since he and Luke are colleagues who know each other well. Instead, he was doing something that some people want a lot more of and other people donât want at all. This seems like a matter of competing access needs (different people wanting different things from a shared resource).
In the end, I think itâs down to individual users to take their best guess at whether saying âI downvotedâ or âI upvotedâ would be helpful in a given case. And Iâm still not sure whether having more such comments would be a net positive â probably depends on circumstance.
***
Max having a senior position in the community is also a complicated thing. On the one hand, thereâs a risk that anything he says will be taken very seriously and lead to reactions he wouldnât want. On the other hand, it seems good for leaders to share their honest opinions on public platforms (rather than doing everything via DM or deliberately softening their views).
There are still ways to write better or worse comments, but I thought Maxâs was reasonable given the balancing act heâs trying to do (and the massive support Lukeâs post had gotten already â Iâd feel differently if Max had been joining a pile-on or something).
I think the problem isnât with saying you downvoted a post and why (I personally share the view that people should aim to explain their downvotes).
The problem is the actual reason:
The message that, for me, stands out from this is âIf you have an important idea but canât present it perfectlyâitâs better not to write at all.â Which I think most of us would not endorse.
I didnât get that message at all. If someone tells me they downvoted something I wrote, my default takeaway is âoh, I could have been more clearâ or âhuh, maybe I need to add something that was missingâ â not âyikes, I shouldnât have written thisâ. *
I read Maxâs comment as âI thought this wasnât written very clearly/âgot some things wrongâ, not âI think you shouldnât have written this at allâ. The latter is, to me, almost the definition of a strong downvote.
If someone sees a post they think (a) points to important issues, and (b) gets important things wrong, any of upvote/âdownvote/âdecline-to-vote seems reasonable to me.
*This is partly because Iâve stopped feeling very nervous about Forum posts after years of experience. I know plenty of people who do have the âyikesâ reaction. But thatâs where the usersâ identities and relationship comes into play â Iâd feel somewhat differently had Max said the same thing to a new poster.
I donât share your view about what a downvote means. However, regardless of what I think, it doesnât actually have any fixed meaning beyond that which people a assign to itâso itâd be interesting to have some stats on how people on the forum interpret it.
Most(?) readers wonât know who either of them is, not to mention their relationship.
What does a downvote mean to you? If it means âyou shouldnât have written thisâ, what does a strong downvote mean to you? The same thing, but with more emphasis?
Why not create a poll? I would, but Iâm not sure exactly which question youâd want asked.
Which brings up another question â to what extent should a comment be written for an author vs. the audience?
Maxâs comment seemed very directed at Luke â it was mostly about the style of Lukeâs writing and his way of drawing conclusions. Other comments feel more audience-directed.
Personally, I primarily downvote posts/âcomments where I generally think âreading this post/âcomment will on average make forum readers be worse at thinking about this problem than if they didnât read this post/âcomment, assuming that the time spent reading this post/âcomment is free.â
I basically never strong downvote posts unless itâs obvious spam or otherwise an extremely bad offender in the âworsens thinkingâ direction.
Itâs been over a week so I guess I should answer even if I donât have time for a longer reply.
I think so, but Iâm not very confident.
I donât think private conversations can exist on a public platform. If itâs not a DM, thereâs always an audience, and in most contexts, Iâd expect much of a commentâs impact to come from its effects on that audience.
The polls in that specific group look like they have a very small and probably unrepresentative sample size. Though I donât weâll be able to get a much larger one on such a question, I guess.