I know some people disagree, but very early downvoting (especially strong downvoting) often ends up functionally being a vote to cut off discussion of a post before it even starts. Those votes make it less likely that others will see and click on the post, will cause them to come to the post with a more negative lens (consciously or otherwise), and will make them less likely to engage (why make the effort if you think the post is headed into oblivion soon enough because of low karma?). That’s a hard trifecta for a post to overcome.
Like motions to cut off debate early in most parliamentary systems, the bar for functionally cutting off discussion of a post at an early juncture should be relatively high. (It is 2⁄3 majority in most parliamentary systems, IIRC.)
I wonder if we would benefit from something like a system that hides the karma (and treats it as zero for visibility purposes) of posts that have less than <some quantity> of engagement. That way posts would get a “grace period” before getting hidden.
The potential cost there is that there are occasionally some really bad posts that deserve the rapid downvote—such as those that don’t respect important Forum norms, even if not quite to the point of formal moderator action. In those cases, the hail of downvotes allows the Forum to deal with those quickly and without moderator action that could be seen as “censoring” someone. But maybe those kinds of posts are rare enough to incur the cost.
I know some people disagree, but very early downvoting (especially strong downvoting) often ends up functionally being a vote to cut off discussion of a post before it even starts. Those votes make it less likely that others will see and click on the post, will cause them to come to the post with a more negative lens (consciously or otherwise), and will make them less likely to engage (why make the effort if you think the post is headed into oblivion soon enough because of low karma?). That’s a hard trifecta for a post to overcome.
Like motions to cut off debate early in most parliamentary systems, the bar for functionally cutting off discussion of a post at an early juncture should be relatively high. (It is 2⁄3 majority in most parliamentary systems, IIRC.)
I wonder if we would benefit from something like a system that hides the karma (and treats it as zero for visibility purposes) of posts that have less than <some quantity> of engagement. That way posts would get a “grace period” before getting hidden.
The potential cost there is that there are occasionally some really bad posts that deserve the rapid downvote—such as those that don’t respect important Forum norms, even if not quite to the point of formal moderator action. In those cases, the hail of downvotes allows the Forum to deal with those quickly and without moderator action that could be seen as “censoring” someone. But maybe those kinds of posts are rare enough to incur the cost.