Open thread, 21-27 April 2014

Metus

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Thread started before the end of the last thread to ecourage Monday as first day.

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Thread started before the end of the last thread to ecourage Monday as first day.

I'd say that even more important than giving explanation is not downvoting merely because you disagree. The signal transmitted by downvoting is "I don't want the hear this" or in simpler language "shut up". This should be reserved to fight content which is offensive, spam, trolling, rampant crackpottery, blatant off-topic etc. Mistakes made in good faith don't deserve a downvote. I'd say it is an extension of the "Bad argument gets counterargument. Does not get bullet. Never. Never ever never for ever." rule. The alternative is death spirals, blue-green politics and plainly ruining the community experience for everyone.

I personally made a rule of upvoting any content with net negative score which doesn't deserve a downvote, even if I disagree, especially when it's a comment of a person I'm currently arguing against. I want arguments that are discussions in which both sides are trying to arrive at the truth, not fights or two-people-showing-off-how-smart-they-are (is there a name for it?).

The signal transmitted by downvoting is "I don't want the hear this" or in simpler language "shut up". This should be reserved to fight content which is offensive, spam, trolling, rampant crackpottery, blatant off-topic etc.

I think you're drawing a false equivalence here. While a downvote does carry the meaning of "I don't want to hear this", most of the meaning of "shut up" is connotation, not denotation, and those connotations don't necessarily carry over.

Mere disagreement generally isn't enough to justify a d... (read more)

5A1987dM12y

The same person who said that also said this, so I guess he meant something narrower by “bullet” than you think.

2Tenoke12y

I donwvoted you, because you seem to use upvotes in a way that diminishes the value of the karma system in my eyes - an undeserved downvote is as bad as an undeserved upvote. I've seen a lot of low quality posts getting some karma, and coming back to positive scores without a good reason - and now I know the behaviour that is partially responsible. (and the above comes from someone with a mass downvoter after him, who gets a downvote on every single comment he makes)