In a system that doesn't rank, sort, hide, distinguish, or otherwise do anything other than increment a counter next to a post... huh? Groupthink: You mean a c

In a system that doesn't rank, sort, hide, distinguish, or otherwise do anything other than increment a counter next to a post... huh? Groupthink: You mean a community that downvotes a comment about X suddenly has a positive notion about X because the votes are hidden? An example to others: I see this as a good thing - it lets an outsider get a good feel for what community members like. A number is much easier to parse than thousands of comments. "Shitting on others" is a very melodramatic way of "people saying they don't like a comment with numbers".