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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   36582 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022

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But see, that's the popularity contest element! You're not upvoting because "I think this is a good comment", you're upvoting because "Uh-oh, the other lot downvoted it, I need to restore balance".

I tend to give out upvote subsidies when there are visible scores to try to preserve a friendly atmosphere here. I don't believe that anyone engaging politely according to the rules should get a scarlet letter fixed to their post saying "We all hate you. We think your ideas are stupid". I'll do this even when the comment isn't particularly logical or insightful.

I would prefer to do away with voting altogether, since this kind of "I must carefully comb through the thread and make sure to upvote X and downvote Y" activity is breaking the entire system.

IMO a large part of the reason social media platforms outmoded message boards is that they provided lurkers and semi-lurkers a "no effort" way of showing content creators that people were seeing and appreciating them. There are obvious downsides but messing with the DNA is dangerous.

I'll do this even when the comment isn't particularly logical or insightful.

And that is what causes a problem for me; we have vpn upthread saying "I know I will be less keen to read content here if I cannot selectively consume higher-quality (per upvotes) content and skip over the lower-quality ones". If he and others are using upvotes as a marker for "this is good content", then your upvoting for "let's be nice, even if the comment is bad" ruins the measurement. Now he is reading bad content that got upvoted and is scoring highly, and what conclusion can he draw from that other than "this place has gone to the dogs if bad content like this is getting upvoted" and then leave?

You're trying to be nice. I don't think niceness per se is the function of this place; no, we should not be abusive assholes, but the idea is to have good content that provokes debate, is informative, and backed up by some kind of argument. An upvoted series of "you're great" "no, you're great" for whatever side - conservative, progressive, right-wing, left-wing, up or down or side-to-side - is going to be rubbish.

Be nice - but if the person's comment is poor, then we should be able to respond as to why it's poor. Refraining because it's shooting fish in a barrel is the better way to deal with really bad content where the person is not being provocative for the sake of it. But refraining because 'this is outgroup bait', or even worse, upvoting as a pat on the head is the equivalent of "here's a gold star for little Timmy because he's so special (in the special needs sense) and won't get anything on merit, so let's patronise him".

I feel you've missed my point. I'm taking -5 posts up to -4. These posts are no worse than right-wing comments that are scored +10. In fact, the downvoted posts may be better, and I only think they're illogical or uninsightful because of my bias.

No one is bringing a bad post up to +50 as a participation trophy. My intent is only to balance out the obvious bias of our electorate.

VPN wants quality, and quality will go away in proportion to this forum becoming a pure right-wing crank self-congratulation society.

IMO a large part of the reason social media platforms outmoded message boards is that provided lurkers and semi-lurkers a "no effort" way of showing content creators that people were seeing and appreciating them. There are obvious downsides but messing with the DNA is dangerous.

Did you leave out a word or two here? I'm not sure how message boards provided lurkers a way of showing that they liked a certain post. You're referring to traditional linear forums, right? Some of them provide an upvote feature or even upvote/downvote, but many don't.

Did you leave out a word or two here?

One word:

'IMO a large part of the reason social media platforms outmoded message boards is that [they] provided lurkers and semi-lurkers a "no effort" way of showing content creators that people were seeing and appreciating them.'

So the verb "provided" corresponds to "social media platforms", not "message boards". The meaning is backwards from what you thought I was so saying. Reddit and Twitter provide an easy engagement buttons for lurkers. Old forums did not.

Some of them provide an upvote feature or even upvote/downvote, but many don't.

Some forums have added upvotes nowadays, yes. Around the time Digg and then Reddit were on the rise, though, phpBB forums usually had nothing. Some had a karma system where you left messages for other users, but critically, these features were karma-gated. So lurkers could not "commend" or "upkarma" a post they found interesting. This was supposed to encourage quality participation. In practice, content creators would get less reaction for their effort. You could post on a social media platform and see the number +30 next to your comment, or on a forum and get no reaction.

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