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I wholeheartedly agree. Downvoting people simply because you disagree with their viewpoint is an abomination. It should be a tool for discouraging abusive langu

I wholeheartedly agree. Downvoting people simply because you disagree with their viewpoint is an abomination. It should be a tool for discouraging abusive language or non-constructive discourse that doesn't add value to a conversation. I've been downvoted many times simply because I expressed a perfectly valid opinion that someone simply didn't like.

baldfat 12y ago
I have been down voted when there was a 10+ reply to my comment and question. I was told I was totally off base and needed to read the article. I read the article and quoted exactly showing what I was talking about down voted again so that maybe people wouldn't see that they were actually wrong. My favorite community right now is Google+ for R and VIM. Down votes are focusing on disagree and not constructive.
chrisBob 12y ago
Unless you are sensitive about the karma score then downvoting, or upvoting to determine where a viewpoint falls in the thread seems valid. Personally, I upvote comments that I strongly agree with, and I don't think someone downvoting ones they disagree with is that big a jump.
- boomlinde 12y ago
  There doesn't seem to be an expressly specified code around voting, and I suspect that this might be a deliberate attempt to let the community decide out of unspoken consensus. When concern about the basis of a vote is expressed, it's often made clear that the grounds for up voting and down voting are not symmetrical. I can't decide if I think that they should be or if it doesn't matter. I'd really like to see a list of controversial posts (many votes in both direction) to determine whether they are mostly matters of agreement/disagreement or if there is usually some less personal ground (e.g. expressing a factually wrong but popularly held belief, differing opinions on what adds to the discussion or not etc.)
- nilkn 12y ago
  People are sensitive about karma scores. Moreover, this site actually grays out downvoted comments, sometimes to the point that they're nearly unreadable. This is not consistent with the premise that votes are just to accumulate the distribution of opinions on a topic.

baldfat 12y ago

I have been down voted when there was a 10+ reply to my comment and question. I was told I was totally off base and needed to read the article. I read the article and quoted exactly showing what I was talking about down voted again so that maybe people wouldn't see that they were actually wrong. My favorite community right now is Google+ for R and VIM. Down votes are focusing on disagree and not constructive.

chrisBob 12y ago

Unless you are sensitive about the karma score then downvoting, or upvoting to determine where a viewpoint falls in the thread seems valid. Personally, I upvote comments that I strongly agree with, and I don't think someone downvoting ones they disagree with is that big a jump.

boomlinde 12y ago
There doesn't seem to be an expressly specified code around voting, and I suspect that this might be a deliberate attempt to let the community decide out of unspoken consensus. When concern about the basis of a vote is expressed, it's often made clear that the grounds for up voting and down voting are not symmetrical. I can't decide if I think that they should be or if it doesn't matter. I'd really like to see a list of controversial posts (many votes in both direction) to determine whether they are mostly matters of agreement/disagreement or if there is usually some less personal ground (e.g. expressing a factually wrong but popularly held belief, differing opinions on what adds to the discussion or not etc.)
nilkn 12y ago
People are sensitive about karma scores. Moreover, this site actually grays out downvoted comments, sometimes to the point that they're nearly unreadable. This is not consistent with the premise that votes are just to accumulate the distribution of opinions on a topic.