On being downvoted

post by Adam Zerner (adamzerner) · 2023-09-17T01:59:52.743Z · LW · GW · 15 comments

Contents

  What should my votes mean?
None
15 comments

Meta: I don't think I have anything even moderately good to say here. Still, 1) I observe and endorse the policy [? · GW] of "Posts on practically any topic are welcomed on LessWrong", and 2) I think it might be helpful to start a conversation about this, in part so that others can say useful things, and in part because it might trigger others to discuss their feelings, which seems like something that plausibly might lead to good outcomes.

I find myself being downvoted periodically. And I find it to be moderately frustrating.

I don't endorse this feeling. If I could self-modify my limbic system, I'd design it to be negligibly affected by downvotes.

Well, actually, that's not true. I think I'd design it to be a little self-conscious and driven to reflect on what I could improve on. In proportion to how plausible I find the downvotes to be justified. But often times I am confident that the downvotes aren't justified, and yet can't shake the feeling of being moderately frustrated.

From the FAQs [LW · GW]:

What should my votes mean?

We encourage people to vote such that upvote means “I want to see more of this” and downvote means “I want to see less of this.”

Suppose that everyone voted according to this and I observe myself being downvoted. What does that mean?

Well, I guess it means that someone with a LessWrong account wants to see less of the type of thing I wrote. Expressing it that way, being more than negligibly affected emotionally seems pretty silly.

Maybe I'm looking at this through the wrong frame [? · GW] though. Maybe I'm being too gears-y and not feelings-y enough.

I've never really grokked the idea of frames that aren't gears-oriented though. Maybe someone else can offer some wisdom here.

One thing that seems to help a fair bit is receiving an explanation. Or, similarly, a negative/constructive reaction [LW · GW]. I strongly suspect this to be the case for others as well.

I'm not sure why this is though. How much information does the explanation provide? I could usually guess at the reason pretty accurately, I think, so hearing the explanation doesn't actually cause me to update my beliefs much.

I don't recall this actually happening, but as an example, sometimes I write things that I think might be contentious or hostile sounding. If such a thing gets downvoted, I start off being decently confident that the contentiousness was why. Hearing someone tell me "it's the contentiousness" updates my emotions a good amount even though it updates my beliefs a small amount.

Here's something that I do suspect happens, both to me and to others: being downvoted for, at least appearing to be, overconfident [? · GW]. For example, three paragraphs ago I wrote "I strongly suspect this to be the case for others as well." and I noticed myself cringe a little. I thought to myself something along these lines:

Ugh. Certain people probably think sounds arrogant. And they might downvote me because of it.

But I shouldn't let that stop me. I endorse the way I framed it. Stating that you are confident in something is not the same thing as being arrogant, and doesn't automatically deserve a status slap-down.  It's just clear communication.

Also, if you find that you're underconfident way more than you're overconfident, and you seek to be well-calibrated, well, you're not updating your beliefs quickly enough. You should probably update towards being more confident about things. You might even overshoot and end up too overconfident. If that happens, it's ok. Like a pendulum, you can just continue to sway.

Similarly, I experience the same cringe after writing the above quoted section. I worry that it sounds hostile and uncharitable. But I also endorse what I wrote and think it is best to lean (not completely!) towards doing the thing I endorse instead of the thing that is easy.

I won't keep doing this... but even that above paragraph, I cringe a little. Doesn't it sound like I am humble-bragging? Maybe. But I don't want to sit here all afternoon trying to think of a better way to frame it.

Maybe it has to do with the lack of nonverbal cues. I think I come across as arrogant at times in my writing, but in real life, I've been told the opposite, and I believe that I mostly give off the impression of the opposite of arrogance in real life.^[1] Relatedly, I think I remember hearing that people find Robin Hanson to be surprisingly friendly when they meet him in real life.

I wonder what this means. Maybe it'd be helpful to use words such as "like" more frequently in an attempt to mirror how we'd actually speak in real life.

Y'know, I don't think I recall a conversation about downvoting in general. Especially not one that tries to look through a feelings-oriented frame. Which is a little surprising, and a little disappointing.

I'm not sure what else to say to end this post. I guess I'll say that I look forward to chatting about it in the comments and am hopeful that the conversation leads to something good.

1. ^{^}

   A few weeks ago actually, a close friend pulled me aside and advised me to be more confident. Maybe because I use [LW · GW] a lot of qualifiers in my speech.
   
   I also remember, early in my career, an engineering manager telling me this. I was a junior web developer and when asked how capable I feel at doing a particular task, or how quickly I think I could get it done, I'd just be honest. The manager told me it makes me look bad and, even if I don't believe it, for political reasons, I should appear confident.
   
   I'm not above doing things for political reasons, but here I avoid doing so. I find it to be extremely distasteful, and the political advantages don't really come close to outweighing this distastefulness.

15 comments

Comments sorted by top scores.