One solution would be to demand that every down-vote comes with a reason, to which the original poster can reply.
This has been proposed a couple of times before (/âremoving downvotes entirely), and I get the sentiment than writing something and having someone âdrive-by-downvoteâ is disheartening/âfrustrating (it doesnât keep me up at night, but a lot of my posts and comments have 1-2 downvotes on them even if they end up net-positive, but I donât really have a steer as to what problem the downvoters wanted to highlight).
That said, I think this is a better cost to bear than erecting a large barrier for expressions of âless of thisâ. I might be inclined to downvote some extremely long and tendentious line-by-line âfiskingâ criticism, without having to become the target of a similar reply myself by explaining why I downvoted it. I also expect a norm of âexplaining your reasoningâ will lead to lots of unedifying ârowing with the refâ meta-discussions (âI downvoted your post because of Xâ/â âHow dare you, thatâs completely unreasonable! So I have in turn downvoted your reply!â)
Hey Gregory, thanks for commenting on this. The problem with the idea that downvoting signifies âless of thisâ is that the poster has no clue as for what that refers to, and hence theyâre at a loss in trying to reduce less of that. And after all, why would they? All one can conclude is: âThere are people here who donât like reading this. Well, that tells me more about this audience (unable to critically engage with my points) and their biased viewpoints than about my post. In fact, it doesnât tell me anything about the arguments provided in my post.â
As for meta-discussions on the reasons for down-voting, I think theyâd be rather healthy: theyâd expose both expectations, values and even biases held by the forumâs participants.
One downside of critical comments is they tend to draw attention to the discussion. Mass downvoting suggests that something is so low quality you donât have to pay attention to it.
Yeah, in case of obvious crap posts (like spams) theyâll be massively downvoted. Otherwise, Iâve never seen here any of the serious posts massively only downvoted. Rather, youâd have some downvotes, some upvotes, and the case you describe doesnât capture this situation. In fact, an initial row of downvotes may misleadingly give such an impression, leading to some people ignoring the issue, while later on a row of upvotes may actually show the issue is controversial, and as such indeed deserves further discussion.
Hey Dunja, itâs true that a downvote provides less information than a comment, but I think it does provide some information, and that people can update based on that information, particularly if they get similar feedback on multiple comments: e.g. I might notice âOh, when I write extremely short comments, theyâre more likely to be downvoted, and less likely to be upvoted. Iâll elaborate more in the futureâ or similar.
Hi Max! I agree, it indeed provides information, but the problem is that the information is too vague, and it may easily reflect a sheer bias (as in: âI donât like any posts that question the work of OpPhilâ). I think this is a strong sentiment in this community and as an academic who is not affiliated with OpPhil or any other EA organization, Iâve noticed numerous cases of silent rejection of a certain problem. I donât think the issues are relevant for any âmainstreamâ EA topic (points on which the majority here agrees). But as soon as it comes to the polarized issues (say, the funding of non-academic institutions to conduct academic research), the majority that downvotes doesnât say a word. I found it quite entertaining (but also disappointing) when I made a longer post on this topic, only to find bunch of downvotes without concrete engagement in the topic. My interpretation of whatâs happened there: people dislike someone making waves in their little pond.
I understand you may wish to proceed as youâve suggested, but eventually this community will push away dissenters, who are very fond of EA, but who just donât see any point in presenting critical arguments on this platform.
This has been proposed a couple of times before (/âremoving downvotes entirely), and I get the sentiment than writing something and having someone âdrive-by-downvoteâ is disheartening/âfrustrating (it doesnât keep me up at night, but a lot of my posts and comments have 1-2 downvotes on them even if they end up net-positive, but I donât really have a steer as to what problem the downvoters wanted to highlight).
That said, I think this is a better cost to bear than erecting a large barrier for expressions of âless of thisâ. I might be inclined to downvote some extremely long and tendentious line-by-line âfiskingâ criticism, without having to become the target of a similar reply myself by explaining why I downvoted it. I also expect a norm of âexplaining your reasoningâ will lead to lots of unedifying ârowing with the refâ meta-discussions (âI downvoted your post because of Xâ/â âHow dare you, thatâs completely unreasonable! So I have in turn downvoted your reply!â)
Hey Gregory, thanks for commenting on this. The problem with the idea that downvoting signifies âless of thisâ is that the poster has no clue as for what that refers to, and hence theyâre at a loss in trying to reduce less of that. And after all, why would they? All one can conclude is: âThere are people here who donât like reading this. Well, that tells me more about this audience (unable to critically engage with my points) and their biased viewpoints than about my post. In fact, it doesnât tell me anything about the arguments provided in my post.â
As for meta-discussions on the reasons for down-voting, I think theyâd be rather healthy: theyâd expose both expectations, values and even biases held by the forumâs participants.
One downside of critical comments is they tend to draw attention to the discussion. Mass downvoting suggests that something is so low quality you donât have to pay attention to it.
Yeah, in case of obvious crap posts (like spams) theyâll be massively downvoted. Otherwise, Iâve never seen here any of the serious posts massively only downvoted. Rather, youâd have some downvotes, some upvotes, and the case you describe doesnât capture this situation. In fact, an initial row of downvotes may misleadingly give such an impression, leading to some people ignoring the issue, while later on a row of upvotes may actually show the issue is controversial, and as such indeed deserves further discussion.
Hey Dunja, itâs true that a downvote provides less information than a comment, but I think it does provide some information, and that people can update based on that information, particularly if they get similar feedback on multiple comments: e.g. I might notice âOh, when I write extremely short comments, theyâre more likely to be downvoted, and less likely to be upvoted. Iâll elaborate more in the futureâ or similar.
Hi Max! I agree, it indeed provides information, but the problem is that the information is too vague, and it may easily reflect a sheer bias (as in: âI donât like any posts that question the work of OpPhilâ). I think this is a strong sentiment in this community and as an academic who is not affiliated with OpPhil or any other EA organization, Iâve noticed numerous cases of silent rejection of a certain problem. I donât think the issues are relevant for any âmainstreamâ EA topic (points on which the majority here agrees). But as soon as it comes to the polarized issues (say, the funding of non-academic institutions to conduct academic research), the majority that downvotes doesnât say a word. I found it quite entertaining (but also disappointing) when I made a longer post on this topic, only to find bunch of downvotes without concrete engagement in the topic. My interpretation of whatâs happened there: people dislike someone making waves in their little pond.
I understand you may wish to proceed as youâve suggested, but eventually this community will push away dissenters, who are very fond of EA, but who just donât see any point in presenting critical arguments on this platform.