I filled out the survey, but donāt want to fill it out again just to give one extra suggestion, and Iād like to see feedback on this suggestion, too:
I think we should see who votes on a comment or post, or at least downvotes (and their magnitudes, e.g. separate the strong downvotes from the regular ones). If youāre going to punish someone for something they wrote, you should be willing to have your account attached to it, so we can expect you to defend it. I donāt want to see downvotes being used merely as disagreement or disapproval of certain causes or views without explanation. This could unfairly suppress less popular views without allowing them to respond in defence.
Iāve seen this happen a few times with asymmetric population ethics views, including some comments on this post and my own Shortform (both some comments and the Shortform āpostā itself; either they strong downvoted or had enough karma for single downvotes to count as double). Obviously Iām curious about who did this and would like to see explanation from them (although I donāt expect to get it), and would prefer this not to happen in the future without explanation, so I have some personal stake here.
I saw elsewhere that different kinds of reactions besides upvotes and downvotes could be useful, too. E.g. agree, disagree, ādownvoteā for off-topic, ādownvoteā for tone/ārudeness, āupvoteā for quality. Being able to upvote someone for quality but still quickly signal disagreement seems like it could be useful, although maybe thatās best left for replies.
I think there are several good points to what youāve written here (for transparency: I upvoted the comment), but Iāll share some counterpoints as well.
When I imagine what would happen if we launched a ātransparent votingā feature and people couldnāt opt out of it, I foresee many people telling me that this feature would make them very worried about ever downvoting any material from people with a high-status/āāauthoritativeā viewpoint on something. I already hear frequently, from a surprisingly wide range of people, that writing critical comments on the Forum is intimidating when the target of criticism is well-versed in the subject or generally a well-respected thinker.
Iām not certain that transparent voting would actually be more informative in the end (if many fewer people bother to vote at all, and fewer voters vote their true beliefs in controversial cases, thatās a lot of lost info).
My thinking is that downvotes should be used sparingly, and only with feedback (or some cited reason). If someone with a high-status/āāauthoritativeā viewpoint is being downvoted, even they deserve to know why. If someone is brave enough to reply with criticism, others could upvote that criticism anonymously (upvotes could remain anonymous).
Maybe the voting can remain anonymous, but each downvote has to be tied to an explanation? E.g. each downvote must reference a comment in the post as an explanation. Once one person properly criticizes with a comment, the others can refer to that comment anonymously as the reason for their downvotes. This gives whoeverās been downvoted a chance to know why and a chance to defend themselves.
Also, I often upvote and leave critical comments without complimenting, and it would be more convenient if the upvote functionality showed my account so it could signal that I did actually appreciate their comment/āpost despite my criticism, without me having to write it in a comment. Or I could just put in the effort...
On Facebook, reacting to a comment is a quicker way to acknowledge it when you donāt have anything else to add.
Or we could functionally require downvotes to come with explanations (they can be short or just refer to other explanations or comments), and weād probably want these to be tied to accounts, too, since otherwise people could insult each other (more) anonymously.
But then we might want to be able to vote or respond to these explanations, so maybe you can only downvote if you reply to the comment or reference another comment on the post?
I filled out the survey, but donāt want to fill it out again just to give one extra suggestion, and Iād like to see feedback on this suggestion, too:
I think we should see who votes on a comment or post, or at least downvotes (and their magnitudes, e.g. separate the strong downvotes from the regular ones). If youāre going to punish someone for something they wrote, you should be willing to have your account attached to it, so we can expect you to defend it. I donāt want to see downvotes being used merely as disagreement or disapproval of certain causes or views without explanation. This could unfairly suppress less popular views without allowing them to respond in defence.
Iāve seen this happen a few times with asymmetric population ethics views, including some comments on this post and my own Shortform (both some comments and the Shortform āpostā itself; either they strong downvoted or had enough karma for single downvotes to count as double). Obviously Iām curious about who did this and would like to see explanation from them (although I donāt expect to get it), and would prefer this not to happen in the future without explanation, so I have some personal stake here.
I saw elsewhere that different kinds of reactions besides upvotes and downvotes could be useful, too. E.g. agree, disagree, ādownvoteā for off-topic, ādownvoteā for tone/ārudeness, āupvoteā for quality. Being able to upvote someone for quality but still quickly signal disagreement seems like it could be useful, although maybe thatās best left for replies.
I think there are several good points to what youāve written here (for transparency: I upvoted the comment), but Iāll share some counterpoints as well.
When I imagine what would happen if we launched a ātransparent votingā feature and people couldnāt opt out of it, I foresee many people telling me that this feature would make them very worried about ever downvoting any material from people with a high-status/āāauthoritativeā viewpoint on something. I already hear frequently, from a surprisingly wide range of people, that writing critical comments on the Forum is intimidating when the target of criticism is well-versed in the subject or generally a well-respected thinker.
Iām not certain that transparent voting would actually be more informative in the end (if many fewer people bother to vote at all, and fewer voters vote their true beliefs in controversial cases, thatās a lot of lost info).
This seems like an important consideration.
My thinking is that downvotes should be used sparingly, and only with feedback (or some cited reason). If someone with a high-status/āāauthoritativeā viewpoint is being downvoted, even they deserve to know why. If someone is brave enough to reply with criticism, others could upvote that criticism anonymously (upvotes could remain anonymous).
Maybe the voting can remain anonymous, but each downvote has to be tied to an explanation? E.g. each downvote must reference a comment in the post as an explanation. Once one person properly criticizes with a comment, the others can refer to that comment anonymously as the reason for their downvotes. This gives whoeverās been downvoted a chance to know why and a chance to defend themselves.
Also, I often upvote and leave critical comments without complimenting, and it would be more convenient if the upvote functionality showed my account so it could signal that I did actually appreciate their comment/āpost despite my criticism, without me having to write it in a comment. Or I could just put in the effort...
On Facebook, reacting to a comment is a quicker way to acknowledge it when you donāt have anything else to add.
Or we could functionally require downvotes to come with explanations (they can be short or just refer to other explanations or comments), and weād probably want these to be tied to accounts, too, since otherwise people could insult each other (more) anonymously.
But then we might want to be able to vote or respond to these explanations, so maybe you can only downvote if you reply to the comment or reference another comment on the post?