LessWrong Boo Vote (Stochastic Downvoting)

I would base the division on length -- long comments should be downvoted mercilessly, as they take up more time and more screen real estate -- but this makes sense too.

I like this as a general improvement, but it doesn't seem to solve the problem. The kind of trolls that write filler comments and nothing else will just shift in the comment-on-comment niche, making it uncomfortable. The point is that ultimately, there needs to be some kind of moderation of people.

I endorse this idea strenuously. Aggressive housekeeping on all comments will suppress participation, cf. Alicorn's post, but this seems to be an excellent compromise.

I advise against this strategy. The quality of your comments is generally positive, and that will be reflected in your karma, so just post when you have something to say and it will go up overall, though it's pretty unpredictable what will be voted up or down.

I don't want to trade in karma I earn for great comments so I can make mediocre comments. I want my karma to go up, preferably fast. I'm not sure if this is a good goal to have - maybe karma just feels like approval and I like it because I wasn't hugged enough as a child or something - but nevertheless, I have that motivation.

And yet... the strategy your instincts are driving you to implement isn't making your karma go up fast. At least, it would go up faster if you lowered your standard. What your extra caution is achieving in practice is sacrificing karma gain in favour of conveying a reputation as a considered, insightful poster with a diplomatic style.

If you actually want to increase karma faster, post a whole heap more and only inhibit posts that are rude or particularly stupid.

That said, it is possible to maintain high karma and come across as an entirely unhug-worthy pain in the ass a lot of the time. Data Point: The most downvoted person on this site remained in the top posters list until a couple of weeks ago when I spent ten minutes browsing his posts making sure I that I downvoted everything stupid. By all means, I encourage you to continue to err on the side of not being a pain in the ass.

Is that bad?

Considering that some posts are getting hundreds of comments, not that many people have the time to read them all (especially if you have to search a bit to find what you have and haven't read), it may be better for everyone to have fewer comments, but of higher quality.

Or, to put it another way, considering that you're writing once to be read dozens of times, it's nice to your readers to take a bit of effort to polish up your prose, it costs a few seconds to you but can save a few seconds to a lot of people. This may feel unusual if we are used to situations like conversation (or online chat) where the listener/talker ratio isn't as skewed.

The real risk is when certain forms of comment (approval, disapproval) are discouraged, because the community's standards of "quality" are skewed.

I want my karma to go up, preferably fast.

Well, karma is a tangible (if imperfect) measure of success in this community, and rationalists should win... right?

I think this perception is a problem for the community, and I don't think it's workable to tell people to not feel like this. Two possible ways around it:

1. Make comment scores affect karma only if it goes outside some range, e.g., perhaps you'd lose a point of karma for a -2 post, two points for -3 post, gain a point for +2 post, two points for a +3, &c. This would likely be a pain to implement.
2. Make karma dropping normal and expected, but not tied to participation, e.g., take the square root of everyone's karma on a weekly basis. This has obvious downsides for karma cutoffs to do certain things (like post articles).

I don't see how this analogy applies. The problem that is being solved is keeping proper balance between good comments and average comments. Average comments must weight down, as otherwise there isn't enough feedback, but they mustn't weight so much as to hurt normal discussion. This can't be solved with extremes within the current system.

I really do think we're all getting too worked up over the minutia of the karma system.

Agreed, but:

This isn't a game.

We must admit that to a great extent, it is. We are all attempting to make ourselves appear more useful to the community, and karma is the only quantitative way to tell if we're making progress. Like so many things, it feels like it trivializes but it is there for a purpose.

Why do we feel that a downvote is such a big deal? A downvote doesn't mean "we think your an idiot, go jump off a bridge or at least don't ever post here again". It means that this comment isn't up to our standards, and you should do better next time.

It's a big deal if it's the first or only vote on a comment, because it puts the comment into the negative. A negative score by itself presents the message, "the community considers your contribution a net negative".

I suspect, though, that if the same score were displayed as "+0/-1", it would communicate a VERY different message, i.e., "One person didn't like this, and nobody else cared one way or another."

Those two messages are likely to produce different effects in most people's brains.

It means that this comment isn't up to our standards, and you should do better next time.

A downvote doesn't mean 'we' anything. It means "I disaprove of this comment".

If I understand correctly, the distinction between not voting, upvoting, and downvoting is too broad. A -.3 vote would give a fourth option that allows for "Didn't suck, but not great."