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I do this rarely when someone is commenting in a way that’s going to drag a thread into a muddy, already-well-trodden non-sequitur.
New and more interesting ideas deserve as much of a chance as they can get.
I virtually always upvote comments, which I see downvoted for expressing an opinion, which is obviously presented in good faith. That's even then the case when I violently disagree with the opinion in question.
What's even worse than people downvoting a well reasoned opinion are downvotes for factual statements.
I wouldn't downvote someone who said something like "Shouldn't we all make time to ensure our code is always secure" (even though this might not be realistic/true) whereas someone who said something like, "Anyone who doesn't make time to ensure their code is always secure deserves to go out of business" implies that it is always possible to secure all code; that people choose to not secure certain parts; and therefore they deserve to fail. I am more likely to downvote this.
I don't mind opinions though so if someone said "I always use PHP and it has always been fine", is no problem even though that's not my experience.
I am pretty good at rants so I will go on a rant on the comment section instead. I like to vent to strangers and I think some people love a good rant to read.
Can I answer this differently? I virtually always upvote comments, which I see downvoted for expressing an opinion, which is obviously presented in good faith. That's even then the case when I violently disagree with the opinion in question. What's even worse than people downvoting a well reasoned opinion are downvotes for factual statements.
I've had well-written comments downvoted into oblivion in threads that also included another comment stating the exact same opinion slightly differently. I've had zingy one-liners upvoted to 100 or so. I've had discussions where the back and forth statements alternated between negative and positive karma.
I'm treating it as a study in human behavior around communications. So far my takeaways are:
- a zingy one-liner that agrees with the zeitgeist will be upvoted to the sky
- the same type of comment expressing a contrarian view will be buried
- timing matters: if you get a few downvotes early on, the downvote brigade will help ensure a continued slide
- downvoting to disagree is natural (meme theory and all that). What's interesting to me is how can one overcome the impulse to downvote and potentially seed a new idea in someone's brain.
At the end of the day I think everyone just upvotes comments they like, and downvotes comments they dislike, people just have different reactions to things that impact what "dislike" means to them.