I think some (rare!) pieces deserve to be downvoted, and am not a huge fan of this one. But it’d be nice if people who downvote could leave a brief comment precisely explaining their reasons. I realise this norm would make downvoting more onerous, but that seems an acceptable cost.
My experience on Lesswrong indicates that though well intentioned, this would be a terrible policy. The best predictor on Lesswrong if texts of mine would be upvoted or downvoted was wheter someone, in particular username Shminux, would give reasons for their downvote.
There is nothing I dislike or fear more, when I write on Lesswrong than Shminux giving reasons why he’s downvoting this time.
Don’t get me wrong, write a whole dissertation about what in the content is wrong, or bad, or unformatted, do anything else, but don’t say, for instance “Downvoted because X”
It is a nightmare.
Having reasons for downvotes visible induces people to downvote, and we seldom do the mirror thing, writing down reasons for the upvote.
I have no doubt, none, after posting dozens of texts about all sort of things, on Lesswrong and EA forum, that having a policy of explaining downvotes is the worse possible thing from the writer’s perspective.
Remember that death is the second biggest fear people have, the first one is speaking in public. Now think about the role of posts explaining downvotes, it would be a total emotional shutdown, specially for new posters who are still getting the gist of it.
I think some (rare!) pieces deserve to be downvoted, and am not a huge fan of this one. But it’d be nice if people who downvote could leave a brief comment precisely explaining their reasons. I realise this norm would make downvoting more onerous, but that seems an acceptable cost.
My experience on Lesswrong indicates that though well intentioned, this would be a terrible policy. The best predictor on Lesswrong if texts of mine would be upvoted or downvoted was wheter someone, in particular username Shminux, would give reasons for their downvote.
There is nothing I dislike or fear more, when I write on Lesswrong than Shminux giving reasons why he’s downvoting this time.
Don’t get me wrong, write a whole dissertation about what in the content is wrong, or bad, or unformatted, do anything else, but don’t say, for instance “Downvoted because X”
It is a nightmare.
Having reasons for downvotes visible induces people to downvote, and we seldom do the mirror thing, writing down reasons for the upvote.
I have no doubt, none, after posting dozens of texts about all sort of things, on Lesswrong and EA forum, that having a policy of explaining downvotes is the worse possible thing from the writer’s perspective.
Remember that death is the second biggest fear people have, the first one is speaking in public. Now think about the role of posts explaining downvotes, it would be a total emotional shutdown, specially for new posters who are still getting the gist of it.
Hmm, that’s a good point and I don’t know what to think any more.