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One idea I had was to be able to see who downvoted a post and be able to list of the last 50 or so posts a particular user has downvoted. Thus would hopefully s

One idea I had was to be able to see who downvoted a post and be able to list of the last 50 or so posts a particular user has downvoted. Thus would hopefully shame users who downvote for reasons other then to keep the conversation constructive. You could even allow downvoting of the downvote, so users could lose karma for downloading an insightful post that they simply disagreed with. Of course, if you allowed downvoting the downvote of a downvote, and so on recursively, you could have downvote wars between two users, where they both drain each other's karma down to zero. I don't see much problem with this, because anyone willing to participate in such a battle seems childish enough that they deserve what they get.

notacoward 10y ago
The best variant of this idea that I've seen is - believe it or not - Slashdot. The key aspect of their system is that you don't get to choose which actions or users to metamoderate. You just get a random set, which breaks the endless downvote cycle you mention. I don't think "they deserve what they get" is sufficient, because bilateral symmetric conflict is not the only scenario. It's easy enough for an ideologically aligned group to hammer an outspoken invididual with metavotes, just as they already do with votes. This can happen with or without explicit coordination, and carries almost no cost/risk for each individual in the lynch mob. There's also the scenario of a karma-rich individual continuing to reap the dividend of the "rich get richer" phenomenon common to all social networks (which this is, whether or not denizens like to admit it). Such a person can afford to spew out hundreds of undeserved downvotes a week. I've been targeted that way here many times, and I'll bet you have too. What SO prescribes is already one of the worst things about HN. Making it easier for those petty individuals to identify targets, and more ways to harass them, scarcely seems like it would help. BTW, I'm not suggesting that the /. system is ideal. Their meta/moderation system has its flaws, as do other aspects of the site. I'm just saying that the random element specifically seems to avoid a lot of pathologies that are common to most such systems.
- reddytowns 10y ago
  > ... and carries almost no cost/risk for each individual in the lynch mob. I see a big cost if the person downvoted can downvote those of the lynch mob. Sure, the lynch mob could downvote the downvote of the victim but I don't see that potential vicious cycle being a winning strategy for suppressing an unliked idea. Wrt the karma rich individual. This change wouldn't help the "rich get richer" because it only opens up the algorithm for additional downvotes. Therefore, the only result that could occur would be everyone, including the rich, having a zero effect on their karma, or a lessening of it. Wrt slashdot, personally, I could never stand meta-moderating. It's so boring to read random comments about a topic that you are not interested in. Maybe it's different for you, but I'd like to know how popular meta-moderation is. Also, the results speak for themselves. Slashdot has gone down in quality a lot over the years, the signal to noise ratio is currently very low. I hardly ever browse the comment section there, anymore. Maybe for you this is different?
  - notacoward 10y ago
    > I see a big cost if the person downvoted can downvote those of the lynch mob. When it's many to one, each member of the mob only has to absorb 1/N of the target's downvotes. For large N, the target will be exhausted before any of their attackers feel a thing. > I don't see that potential vicious cycle being a winning strategy for suppressing an unliked idea. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not real. > This change wouldn't help the "rich get richer" That's not the point. The rich already get richer, because people with high reputation get more attention and therefore more new reputation. Thus, they have a steady inflow of new karma that they can burn on a whim without any real consequence. Even I, at my medium karma level, do this sometimes. I'll post a comment that I know will attract a few downvotes, because maybe some of the less ideologically-rigid folks here will appreciate it and I'll make up the difference on the next comment. Many of the highest-karma people here constantly do that to behave in far more egregious ways. What your proposal does is just give the bullies a new weapon. > Also, the results speak for themselves. Slashdot has gone down in quality Have you considered the possibility of there being other factors at play? Yes, Slashdot has gone downhill, but I think it would have gone downhill even faster with HN's system, and faster still with your proposal.

notacoward 10y ago

The best variant of this idea that I've seen is - believe it or not - Slashdot. The key aspect of their system is that you don't get to choose which actions or users to metamoderate. You just get a random set, which breaks the endless downvote cycle you mention. I don't think "they deserve what they get" is sufficient, because bilateral symmetric conflict is not the only scenario. It's easy enough for an ideologically aligned group to hammer an outspoken invididual with metavotes, just as they already do with votes. This can happen with or without explicit coordination, and carries almost no cost/risk for each individual in the lynch mob. There's also the scenario of a karma-rich individual continuing to reap the dividend of the "rich get richer" phenomenon common to all social networks (which this is, whether or not denizens like to admit it). Such a person can afford to spew out hundreds of undeserved downvotes a week. I've been targeted that way here many times, and I'll bet you have too. What SO prescribes is already one of the worst things about HN. Making it easier for those petty individuals to identify targets, and more ways to harass them, scarcely seems like it would help. BTW, I'm not suggesting that the /. system is ideal. Their meta/moderation system has its flaws, as do other aspects of the site. I'm just saying that the random element specifically seems to avoid a lot of pathologies that are common to most such systems.

reddytowns 10y ago
> ... and carries almost no cost/risk for each individual in the lynch mob. I see a big cost if the person downvoted can downvote those of the lynch mob. Sure, the lynch mob could downvote the downvote of the victim but I don't see that potential vicious cycle being a winning strategy for suppressing an unliked idea. Wrt the karma rich individual. This change wouldn't help the "rich get richer" because it only opens up the algorithm for additional downvotes. Therefore, the only result that could occur would be everyone, including the rich, having a zero effect on their karma, or a lessening of it. Wrt slashdot, personally, I could never stand meta-moderating. It's so boring to read random comments about a topic that you are not interested in. Maybe it's different for you, but I'd like to know how popular meta-moderation is. Also, the results speak for themselves. Slashdot has gone down in quality a lot over the years, the signal to noise ratio is currently very low. I hardly ever browse the comment section there, anymore. Maybe for you this is different?
- notacoward 10y ago
  > I see a big cost if the person downvoted can downvote those of the lynch mob. When it's many to one, each member of the mob only has to absorb 1/N of the target's downvotes. For large N, the target will be exhausted before any of their attackers feel a thing. > I don't see that potential vicious cycle being a winning strategy for suppressing an unliked idea. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not real. > This change wouldn't help the "rich get richer" That's not the point. The rich already get richer, because people with high reputation get more attention and therefore more new reputation. Thus, they have a steady inflow of new karma that they can burn on a whim without any real consequence. Even I, at my medium karma level, do this sometimes. I'll post a comment that I know will attract a few downvotes, because maybe some of the less ideologically-rigid folks here will appreciate it and I'll make up the difference on the next comment. Many of the highest-karma people here constantly do that to behave in far more egregious ways. What your proposal does is just give the bullies a new weapon. > Also, the results speak for themselves. Slashdot has gone down in quality Have you considered the possibility of there being other factors at play? Yes, Slashdot has gone downhill, but I think it would have gone downhill even faster with HN's system, and faster still with your proposal.