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Once a comment is +5 or higher. I think down votes can record peoples disagreement without cluttering the page. This can counter people up voting into the strataphere because they agree rather than because the comment has merit.
Oops, I just upvoted your comment because I agree with you. Someone please counter balance with a downvote.
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Actually, there should be no correlations between votes and agreement. Upvotes should reward civil comments that feed the conversation constructively. Aggressivity, and empty posts ("cheerleaders", etc.) should be downvoted. Flags are for grossly offensive or illegal content. That was the original intent IIRC: encouraging civil conversation. Tying votes with agreement leads to groupthink. We should encourage diversit…
It would help if, instead of the ambiguous up and down arrow icons, the ui provided something like a bulb to mark an interesting idea, and a zzzz to represent a waste of time - or something like that. In the end, people can't help themselves, they want to express agreement/disagreement, so you'd still get some people using the buttons that way, but at least the ui would communicate the desired use.
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Right; that was intended to mean that people sometimes use them for disagreement, despite that they probably shouldn't. Any thoughts on a better wording?
Actually, there should be no correlations between votes and agreement. Upvotes should reward civil comments that feed the conversation constructively. Aggressivity, and empty posts ("cheerleaders", etc.) should be downvoted. Flags are for grossly offensive or illegal content. That was the original intent IIRC: encouraging civil conversation. Tying votes with agreement leads to groupthink. We should encourage diversit…
I upvote comments that I find valuable. That may mean I learned something from the comment, but it may also mean that I think others may learn something from it. If someone makes a point that I would have made otherwise: upvote. In some sense that means I 'agree' with the comment, but if someone simply relates facts, than the upvote means 'this is relevant information'. In a non-factual case it may mean 'this is an opinion/argument that people should take note of'.
Tying votes with agreement leads to groupthink
Untying votes from agreement leads to no votes at all. When you upvote a comment, you by definition 'agree' that it was a proper comment. Without agreement on the 'rightness' of comments, there is no reason to upvote any comment at all.
I don't understand this fear of 'groupthink'. It is perfectly clear what comments will get you a lot of karma. The fact that we don't make those comments isn't because they aren't upvoted: it's because we aren't interested in karma.
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I totally agree that you've described the ideal. Unfortunately, with the UI and people's natural tendencies, it's unavoidable that votes be used for quick-and-easy agreement/disagreement. And there's a certain alluring efficiency to it: once there's a couplet of opposed viewpoints, just weigh in with your "vote". That's what "votes" are for in a democracy, right? The habit of only using downvotes to signal disagreeme…
Unfortunately, with the UI and people's natural tendencies, it's unavoidable that votes be used for quick-and-easy agreement/disagreement. At the moment yes, but why not: Agree/Disagree Good contribution/Poor Contribution. Instead of just up/down.
UP for agree (Propably the most common action)
LEFT for good contribution / insightful / well-constructed argument
DOWN for disagree
RIGHT for bad contribution / troll
This would enable rating of votes in 2 dimensions and may possibly map to a page layout (ie agree+good at top left, then the not so good but still agreed being placed further to the right)
Could alternatively have the comments coloured based on good/bad value (probably some sort of logarithmic scale) and sorted vertically by agree/disagree value, which would still allow conversation threads...
(in reference to posting stuff from one's own blog lines)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately, with the UI and people's natural tendencies, it's unavoidable that votes be used for quick-and-easy agreement/disagreement. At the moment yes, but why not: Agree/Disagree Good contribution/Poor Contribution. Instead of just up/down.
I concur with your proposal and suggest fleshing it out by having 4 directional modifiers: UP for agree (Propably the most common action) LEFT for good contribution / insightful / well-constructed argument DOWN for disagree RIGHT for bad contribution / troll This would enable rating of votes in 2 dimensions and may possibly map to a page layout (ie agree+good at top left, then the not so good but still agreed being p…
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