I wish there were multiple kinds of downvotes. "This is actually bad" (spam, etc.) vs. merely useless, vs. factually incorrect but reasonably presented.
There's arguments for and against that.
On the one hand, we do want to minimize the mental effort put into making a valid vote by a good community member. Up/Down is the simplest, and it is mentally the easiest. When you ask someone to put that vote into a category, that person may or may not then choose to vote at all, and we've missed the opportunity to capture a bit of information.
On the other hand, requiring a little bit more thinking effort may yield more information on average, and help better quality comments rise.
We do kind of have a two-tier vote system now anyway. You can downvote a comment that is just crap. And you can flag a comment that is awful (spam, etc.).
Upvoting should be lightweight, but I'm ok with downvoting requiring slightly more effort (picking a reason).
I probably upvote 20x more than I downvote, if not more. (this would be an interesting statistic to show the user on his own profile page, or even to make globally visible).
>but I'm ok with downvoting requiring slightly more effort (picking a reason).
How about downvoting requiring a reply? I reply to everyone I downvote, the exception being copypasta, strictly-copypasta. A one-word variation on copypasta gets a reply.
Thanks for doing that. I really hate it when a comment that I put some thought into gets downvoted without a single reply. I'm pretty sure I didn't do anything obviously wrong, so if somebody still doesn't like my comment (e.g. they have a reasonable disagreement), I would like to know why.
Requiring downvotes to be accompanied by a reply would also make trolls hesitate before they downvote something just because. Otherwise they themselsves will be downvoted for their failure to provide adequate justification for their downvotes.
But it might also have unintended side effects. For example, all those replies will take up valuable screen space without actually adding anything useful to the discussion, especially if the downvoted comment is worthless to begin with, and especially in the downvote-the-downvote scenario that I just outlined above.
>I really hate it when a comment that I put some thought into gets downvoted without a single reply. I'm pretty sure I didn't do anything obviously wrong, so if somebody still doesn't like my comment (e.g. they have a reasonable disagreement), I would like to know why.
This is exactly why I have that personal policy. If you pass the CAPTCHA, the 'post-to-account-age' ratio, and whatever tests you took to post then you deserve a reason when someone clicks 'DOWNVOTE'. Let the software take care of the real shit-posts.
>Requiring downvotes to be accompanied by a reply would also make trolls hesitate before they downvote something just because.
If you think "trolls" are doing a statistically appreciable amount of downvoting, I would suggest they aren't. "Disagreeable" people are more interested in making their point than they are with suppressing the ability of others to make theirs.
>For example, all those replies will take up valuable screen space without actually adding anything useful to the discussion
'folding' comment branches would fix this. Not folding by default (unless nested deeply enough to justify it anyway); That's just another way to hide 'undesirable' content.
>especially if the downvoted comment is worthless to begin with, and especially in the downvote-the-downvote scenario that I just outlined above.
Put the power in the user's hands. Downvote-the-downvote comments create transparency.
I try to give constructive replies generally, but some people freak out over even positive advice so I just save the low-content back and forth "something is wrong on the internet I must comment on this!" that would make everyone else miserable and downvote them.
Not only does it require a bit more overhead on the downvoter's part, but the reasons can be used by the algorithm.
I also think that some sort of feedback for the comment's poster could really help comment quality.
edit to add: It also reduces the possibility for 'accidental' downvotes, which I see on a regular basis.
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On a related note, deleted comments should still count toward a user's Karma and avg.
The other day I saw a user making comments that struck me as factually questionable. I'm not an expert in that field, so I asked for an explanation. The user had an avg over 5, so there was reason to believe the user might have known something I didn't. All of a sudden, the user's comments on that topic started getting downvoted. Despite the initial downvotes one of the comments was still at the top of the thread (my understanding is that a user's avg impacts the comment ordering). The user never responded to requests for more information or reputable sources, and then all of a sudden, all of his/her comments on that thread were deleted.
Curious, I went and looked up the user's previous comments. In multiple fields this person put on an air of expertise. Maybe he/she is and then again, maybe not. But the comments were almost all disparaging, with this air of expertise. So, the user makes definitive claims that come across like an expert, if their comments start getting downvoted, they delete the comment and don't get penalized. Otherwise, they reap in the upvotes and have an avg that appears to the world to justify their expertise.
I would love an option somewhere between a downvote and a flag. I like to be able to use downvotes almost casually, to signal that someone is wrong or even that they presented their idea poorly and should be knocked down the page. I reserve flags for serious offenses that should result in moderator action. I don't currently have a way to mark a comment as "terrible comment but is not a ban-worthy offense".
I agree. But it is possible that a 3 choice downvote would increase the number of downvotes. Many people do not downvote at the moment, but they might if they had the option to say "abusive/insulting" or "incorrect".
It would be interesting to come up with a way to vote on specific portions of a cmoment. Often when I comment, i'm putting forth many different ideas in one comment box. I don't make 5 comments to put forth 5 different ideas. But because someone disagrees with one of the parts of my comment, the whole thing is downvoted. (And I sometimes have extreme, negative and unpopular opinions, so my average is pretty crummy ;) I would like to see a way for people to show what specifically caused them to downvote; maybe that's categories, maybe voting per-line or per-paragraph, or highlighting and then downvoting?
Just for the sake of putting it under consideration:
Make this a user option. If you want fine-grained downvoting (or at least downvote confirmation), enable it in your user profile. If you don't care that much, don't.
There's arguments for and against that.
On the one hand, we do want to minimize the mental effort put into making a valid vote by a good community member. Up/Down is the simplest, and it is mentally the easiest. When you ask someone to put that vote into a category, that person may or may not then choose to vote at all, and we've missed the opportunity to capture a bit of information.
On the other hand, requiring a little bit more thinking effort may yield more information on average, and help better quality comments rise.
We do kind of have a two-tier vote system now anyway. You can downvote a comment that is just crap. And you can flag a comment that is awful (spam, etc.).