There has been a considerable amount of discussion scattered around Less Wrong about voting, what software features having to do with voting should be added or subtracted, what purpose voting should serve, etc. It seems as though it would be useful to have conveniently consolidated information on how people are actually voting, so we know what habits that we want to encourage or discourage are actually in use and how prevalently.
1. About what percentage of comments do you vote on at all? What percentage of top-level posts?
2. Do you use the boo vote or the anti-kibitzer extensions? Why or why not?
3. What karma threshold do you use to filter what you see, if any?
4. When you vote on a post, or read it and decide not to vote on it, what features of the post are you occurrently conscious of that influence your decision either way? (Submitter, current post score, length, style, topic, spelling, whatever.) What about comments?
5. When you vote on a post, or read it and decide not to vote on it, are there any features of the post that you suspect you may react to subconsciously? What about comments?
6. When you vote on a post, or read it and decide not to vote on it, how do the features to which you react influence you? What about comments?
7. Do you make comments saying how you voted and why, on posts or on other comments? Why or why not?
8. What do you think a vote should be for? (Moving comments around in attentionspace, signifying agreement or disagreement, nudging the score in the direction of the score you think it deserves, influencing user karma to reflect general trends of post/comment quality, pointing out comments that are entertaining or useful or have cogent reasoning, compensating for other people upvoting or downvoting something you don't think warrants it, rewarding people for completing surveys, something I didn't think of, some combination of purposes). Do you usually vote in a way consistent with your opinion about its purpose?
9. What software features would you like to see that are relevant to voting?
10. Does your replying behavior interact in any interesting way with your voting behavior? (For instance, do you usually reply to comments you find confusing with questions, and then downvote them only after getting an inadequate explanation? Do you vote only on discussions you have, or haven't, participated in? Do you upvote for agreement and reply for disagreement?)
11. How do you tend to react when one of your posts or comments gets a good karma score? What if no one votes on it, or it gets a negative score?
12. Is there anything else about your voting behavior or opinions on voting that might be interesting?
I vote on 3 for every 5 posts I read. I vote on 1 of every 5 comments I read.
I use neither. I think the boo-vote is harmful to the system. I would probably use anti-kibitzer if it was integrated into the site.
-4 for each, but I usually read them anyway.
For posts I look for any of the following: new or interesting content; old content presented well; grammar, spelling, organization. I will vote more frequently on subjects I know or find more interesting. Comments I look for relevance to ongoing discussion; insights that provide better perspective; civility.
I expect that "fluff" or unwarranted assumptions affect my decisions negatively. Unskimmable posts are less likely to be read. Passive-aggressive pandering to the group annoys me a great deal, but mostly on a subconscious level.
I generally think along these lines: "Should I upvote this?" I rarely think "Should I downvote this?" I only downvote if I have a negative gut reaction to the post and cannot talk myself into upvoting. This plays out as my mind saying, "Downvote! Downvote! Downvote! Well, wait, should I upvote?"
I will reply with an explanation if one is asked for or I am downvoting for an unusual reason. I have sent private messages explaining downvotes that I considered relevant to the post but off-topic (i.e. formatting or grammar issues). I have never given an explanation for upvoting.
Giving the poster/commenter feedback on their post/comment and drawing positive/negative attention to the post/comment.
Separate numbers for up and down votes. The ability to hide names with a reveal option similar to spoiler mouseovers. I would also like to see overall statistics on my karma and votes. Another potential feature is an option to actively vote 0.
If I reply to a comment I would normally downvote I will wait until a response is given before making the final decision. If I upvote and reply and later find out the reason I upvoted was ill-founded I will remove the upvote.
I take an upvote as "do more of this" and a negative as "something went wrong." No votes means "this comment was not useful."
I think that the concept of voting on a comment to push it toward a particular score is extremely harmful. Voting should be independent of a post/comment's current score.