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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.
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