it's clear to me that the 'sting' of downvotes [...]
Do we need to sugarcoat this? Being rejected for a job stings, having your paper rejected from peer review stings, etc. But in all such cases quality is maintained because of those rejections, and there's no way around it. It may be a factor that downvoting happens in public, but a moderation system where every comment needs to be reviewed by some peer review committee would be way too expensive and too slow for a forum.
Your idea of a two dimensional voting system reminds of Slashdot's more elaborate system. Some people say it works quite well, IIRC. Ultimately, I don't think one should hope to find a technical solution to a social problem.
Here, the technical limits (one-axis voting) is creating a social problem. Disagreement is a normal, healthy, necessary, wonderful thing. But, disagreements are being channeled into the only outlet available: one-dimensional downvotes. And that outlet also includes censure: down-ranking and fading.
So a healthy thing – good-faith disagreement – is being laden with the bad-feelings and retaliatory behavior that comes with punishment. A social problem caused by a technical choice may indeed have a technical fix.
I'm not sure the situation is a net negative. Not being able to censor at all would lead to more noise, and if a comment is valuable then after all other users may still upvote the comment again, so it's not the case that good-faith disagreement is generally discouraged.
With "social problem" I meant something else, namely the fact that there are trolls and low quality comments etc. I don't think those can be eradicated by a technical solution, because once you have a high quality community there is an incentive for people to take part in it even at the cost of having to defeat countermeasures.
What is this "technical fix" you allude to? Eliminating downvotes sounds like a non-starter to me. You could limit the people who can cast them, but that lowers their effectiveness because the probability that a bad comment is downvoted would plummet.
Please read my topmost comment, to which you previously replied. I've not proposed eliminating downvotes, nor limiting them to a smaller group. Instead there's a specific proposal: a two-axis voting system, where people can cast a 'disagree' which has no effect on ranking/fading.
The other axis remains and still has a traditional censorious downvote – but my hypothesis is that it will then be used less, avoiding the negativity created by its current overuse for multiple purposes.
I think it's optimistic to think that the two axes would be respected. People could still go for the heavier downvote out of spite. Slashdot tried to address this by being selective about who gets downmodding rights. It's not obvious that making things less simple works better.
It may be optimistic; many optimistic things with only a small chance of working are still worth a try. (Assuming the worst, and designing only for the worst, then ensures the worst.)
That 'spite' you mention isn't a constant across all communities, across all time: it grows with cycles of negative, stinging punishment-feedback. (The study which started this thread was suggestive of that, regardless of its other limitations.)
I strongly suspect each of the following is true:
• threads on certain contentious subjects have lots of competitive and retaliatory downvotes, driven from the impulses "I can't let only these favored comments sink/fade" and "if those partisans are downvoting me, I'll downvote them"
• that habit/mood, once learned, spills over into other threads, to the detriment of discourse and positive/productive feelings
A separate axis for disagreement might catch some of that and express it where it does less spite-generation.
Yes, but a comment simply to say "+1" or "me too" or "I agree" doesn't scale. (In fact, on HN, it'll usually get a downvote for its banality and waste of vertical-space.)
Hundreds or thousands can issue a single tick that's tallied and displayed in summary form.
Comments
Do we need to sugarcoat this? Being rejected for a job stings, having your paper rejected from peer review stings, etc. But in all such cases quality is maintained because of those rejections, and there's no way around it. It may be a factor that downvoting happens in public, but a moderation system where every comment needs to be reviewed by some peer review committee would be way too expensive and too slow for a forum.
Your idea of a two dimensional voting system reminds of Slashdot's more elaborate system. Some people say it works quite well, IIRC. Ultimately, I don't think one should hope to find a technical solution to a social problem.
Here, the technical limits (one-axis voting) is creating a social problem. Disagreement is a normal, healthy, necessary, wonderful thing. But, disagreements are being channeled into the only outlet available: one-dimensional downvotes. And that outlet also includes censure: down-ranking and fading.
So a healthy thing – good-faith disagreement – is being laden with the bad-feelings and retaliatory behavior that comes with punishment. A social problem caused by a technical choice may indeed have a technical fix.
I'm not sure the situation is a net negative. Not being able to censor at all would lead to more noise, and if a comment is valuable then after all other users may still upvote the comment again, so it's not the case that good-faith disagreement is generally discouraged.
With "social problem" I meant something else, namely the fact that there are trolls and low quality comments etc. I don't think those can be eradicated by a technical solution, because once you have a high quality community there is an incentive for people to take part in it even at the cost of having to defeat countermeasures.
What is this "technical fix" you allude to? Eliminating downvotes sounds like a non-starter to me. You could limit the people who can cast them, but that lowers their effectiveness because the probability that a bad comment is downvoted would plummet.
Please read my topmost comment, to which you previously replied. I've not proposed eliminating downvotes, nor limiting them to a smaller group. Instead there's a specific proposal: a two-axis voting system, where people can cast a 'disagree' which has no effect on ranking/fading.
The other axis remains and still has a traditional censorious downvote – but my hypothesis is that it will then be used less, avoiding the negativity created by its current overuse for multiple purposes.
I think it's optimistic to think that the two axes would be respected. People could still go for the heavier downvote out of spite. Slashdot tried to address this by being selective about who gets downmodding rights. It's not obvious that making things less simple works better.
It may be optimistic; many optimistic things with only a small chance of working are still worth a try. (Assuming the worst, and designing only for the worst, then ensures the worst.)
That 'spite' you mention isn't a constant across all communities, across all time: it grows with cycles of negative, stinging punishment-feedback. (The study which started this thread was suggestive of that, regardless of its other limitations.)
I strongly suspect each of the following is true:
• threads on certain contentious subjects have lots of competitive and retaliatory downvotes, driven from the impulses "I can't let only these favored comments sink/fade" and "if those partisans are downvoting me, I'll downvote them"
• that habit/mood, once learned, spills over into other threads, to the detriment of discourse and positive/productive feelings
A separate axis for disagreement might catch some of that and express it where it does less spite-generation.
"But, disagreements are being channeled into the only outlet available: one-dimensional downvotes."
Downvoting is not the only way to express disagreement; you can reply to the post and express your opinion (like I just did now).
Yes, but a comment simply to say "+1" or "me too" or "I agree" doesn't scale. (In fact, on HN, it'll usually get a downvote for its banality and waste of vertical-space.)
Hundreds or thousands can issue a single tick that's tallied and displayed in summary form.