I think it’s more that upvoting your own posts from an alt is (1) willful, intentional behavior (2) aimed at deceiving the community about the level of support of a comment (3) for the person’s own benefit. Presumably, most people who are doing it are employing some sort of means to evade detection, which adds another layer of deceptiveness. While I don’t like downvoting-for-disagreement and the like either, that kind of behavior presumptively reflects a natural cognitive bias rather than any of the three characteristics listed above. It is for those reasons that—in my view—downvoting-for-disagreement is generally not the proper subject of a sanctioning system,[1] while self-upvoting is.
I’ve suggested to the mods before that sanctions should sometimes be more carefully tailored to the offense, so I’d be open to the view that consequences like permanently denying the violator’s ability to vote and their ability to use alts might be more tailored to the offense than public disclosure. Those are the specific functions which they have demonstrated an inability to handle responsibly. Neither function is so fundamental to the ability to use the Forum that the mods should feel obliged to expend their time deciding if the violator has rehabilitated themselves enough to restore those privileges.
There could be circumstances in which soft-norm violative behavior was so extreme that sanctions should be considered. However, unlike “don’t multi-vote” (which is a bright-line rule for which the violator should be perfectly aware that they are violating the rules), these norms are less clearcut—so privately reaching out to the person would be the appropriate first action in a case like that.
I think it’s more that upvoting your own posts from an alt is (1) willful, intentional behavior (2) aimed at deceiving the community about the level of support of a comment (3) for the person’s own benefit. Presumably, most people who are doing it are employing some sort of means to evade detection, which adds another layer of deceptiveness. While I don’t like downvoting-for-disagreement and the like either, that kind of behavior presumptively reflects a natural cognitive bias rather than any of the three characteristics listed above. It is for those reasons that—in my view—downvoting-for-disagreement is generally not the proper subject of a sanctioning system,[1] while self-upvoting is.
I’ve suggested to the mods before that sanctions should sometimes be more carefully tailored to the offense, so I’d be open to the view that consequences like permanently denying the violator’s ability to vote and their ability to use alts might be more tailored to the offense than public disclosure. Those are the specific functions which they have demonstrated an inability to handle responsibly. Neither function is so fundamental to the ability to use the Forum that the mods should feel obliged to expend their time deciding if the violator has rehabilitated themselves enough to restore those privileges.
There could be circumstances in which soft-norm violative behavior was so extreme that sanctions should be considered. However, unlike “don’t multi-vote” (which is a bright-line rule for which the violator should be perfectly aware that they are violating the rules), these norms are less clearcut—so privately reaching out to the person would be the appropriate first action in a case like that.