[Funny] Even Clippy can be blamed on the use of non-Bayesian methods

I'm not saying that your proposed algorithm is wrong - not exactly, anyway. I am pointing out something that I think is a flaw.

Putting the same point a different way:

Consider two comments. One is posted early, and is seen by 50 people. It's slightly good - good enough that each of those people would, by your algorithm, upvote it, but no better than that. The other is posted late, and is only seen by 10 people, but it's very, very good. According to your algorithm, the first one would get a score of +50 and the second one would get a score of +10. By the methods currently in use, the first one will get a low score - probably +1 or +2 - and the second one will still get +10.

The first comment got many more points than the second, by your algorithm, because its author was able to quickly put together something good enough to be upvoteable, and because they were at the right place at the right time to post it early in the conversation, which implies either luck or lots of time spent lurking on LW. I don't think these are things we want to incentivise - at least not more than we want to incentivise putting time into crafting well-thought-out comments.

Also:

... do people downvote comments that they would have otherwise not voted on if they think the comment has too many upvotes?

I do this. Not very often, but it happens.

I mean, do people downvote comments that they would have otherwise not voted on if they think the comment has too many upvotes? If not, why do they decline to upvote when they otherwise would have upvoted?

I often (although) not always will upvote a comment simply if it deserves it. I only very rarely downvote or don't vote a comment if I think it is too high but should be positive. Declining to upvote a too high comment is something I do much more frequently than downvoting a too high comment. This is a passive rather than active decision. In general declining to upvote creates less negative emotional feelings in me than actively downvoting something which is too high.

I do sometimes upvote comments that have been downvoted if I think they've simply been downvoted way too much. That seems for me at least to be the most common form of corrective voting.

I have no idea how representative my behavior is of the general LWian.

If I think a comment should end up with a score of +2, too bad, I have no direct way of controlling that. The resulting score is a reflection of the community's votes, not something I try to game by altering my voting decision based on whether the score gets closer to +2.

Ok, but that's your self handicapping and I want no part of it myself.

My decision to vote shall be determined by whatever vote I predict has the best consequences.

I don't think "should have a score of +2" should enter into the decision to upvote, downvote, or not vote.

Why not? No, really: what's wrong with that?

Instead, I'd rather voting algorithms which, when implemented individually, have results which can be meaningfully summed.

The current voting algorithms can be meaningfully summed, they're just complicated, opaque and nonstandardized. I don't understand why you think "everyone should use my voting algorithm" is a useful thing to say.

If I think a comment should end up with a score of +2, too bad, I have no direct way of controlling that.

In what situation would you not, given that it is possible to alter your voting decision based on whether the score gets closer to +2? Do you intend to prevent that somehow?

do people downvote comments that they would have otherwise not voted on if they think the comment has too many upvotes?

At least two people do. Why do you ask? (Seriously, I can't figure out why this is phrased as a rhetorical question.)

Edit: Okay, here's the thing: I think it would be more useful if karma was the average of our valuations; i.e. if you could, say, input '+10' or '-3' as shorthand for 'upvote if below this number, downvote if above' rather than simply 'upvote' and 'downvote'. What do you imagine the problem with this system would be?

Comments get more upvotes, independent of quality, if they:

• Are in a high-traffic thread
• Are made while the thread is still new
• Get an early complimentary reply
• Make a point many people agree with and care about (especially if the first to make that point)
• Become the highest-karma comment early on (bandwagon + people may only read/vote on the first few comments, so being the top comment is valuable)
• Are closer to top-level (people don't read deep into threads unless particularly interested)

I think these effects, in aggregate, are probably much stronger determinants of comment karma than actual quality. Top-level posts, to main or discussion, suffer from fewer of these effects, so their karma is a little more reliable. But I hope no one is taking their comment karma too much to heart.

I think that karma is a useful feedback but only at a very approximate level. ...

... there's very little general pattern to how far one comment gets voted up compared to another even when they are very similar comments.

If that's true, then... what's the point of karma scores?

How about this: keep track of total votes behind the scenes, but only report whether the karma is [- -] for k<-5, [-] for -4+10.