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Human beings are hardwired to feel an aversion to social rejection. Downvotes are anonymous social rejection at scale without the standard feedback loop that a
by reificator 9y ago
Human beings are hardwired to feel an aversion to social rejection. Downvotes are anonymous social rejection at scale without the standard feedback loop that allows people to recover and save face.
- derekp7 9y agoI agree, however the fear of downvotes (however irrational that fear may or may not be in an online forum) does cause me to stop and think of how many different ways a comment can be perceived. The result is that if a comment contains anything negative, I'll reword it as much as possible so that it can be expressed without causing a feeling of negativity in the reader. Which, by the way, has made me a better communicator overall, and has really helped out in my career. Edit: I'd also like to see a voting system where people get rewarded for upvoting, and have to make a sacrifice to downvote. For example, if you upvote a comment that others also upvote, you get positive karma, and negative votes can cost you karma.