The main reason for this is that in our interviews with an initial set of reactions that included negative attitudes, we found that authors felt fairly strongly compelled to respond to these reactions in some way—clarifying their writing, understanding the nature of the reaction, etc. With this experience in mind, we felt that it would be preferable for negative reactions to be articulated as comments with some explanation.
Reading the comments here so far, I think I’m more open to some very clear negative reactions to bring more balance particularly at the post level - (e.g. thumbs down or disagree at the post level).
But broadly, I’m personally more worried about the downsides of negative reactions to discussion coherence than the risks of reactions being positive-biased.
The main reason for this is that in our interviews with an initial set of reactions that included negative attitudes, we found that authors felt fairly strongly compelled to respond to these reactions in some way—clarifying their writing, understanding the nature of the reaction, etc. With this experience in mind, we felt that it would be preferable for negative reactions to be articulated as comments with some explanation.
Reading the comments here so far, I think I’m more open to some very clear negative reactions to bring more balance particularly at the post level - (e.g. thumbs down or disagree at the post level).
But broadly, I’m personally more worried about the downsides of negative reactions to discussion coherence than the risks of reactions being positive-biased.