I think there are several good points to what you’ve written here (for transparency: I upvoted the comment), but I’ll share some counterpoints as well.
When I imagine what would happen if we launched a “transparent voting” feature and people couldn’t 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/”authoritative” 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.
I’m 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, that’s 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/”authoritative” 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 whoever’s been downvoted a chance to know why and a chance to defend themselves.
I think there are several good points to what you’ve written here (for transparency: I upvoted the comment), but I’ll share some counterpoints as well.
When I imagine what would happen if we launched a “transparent voting” feature and people couldn’t 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/”authoritative” 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.
I’m 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, that’s 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/”authoritative” 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 whoever’s been downvoted a chance to know why and a chance to defend themselves.