It seems like you think that upvotes are not being used to identify posts that add value, but simply as a signal of agreement with groupthink. Am I reading that right?

Also, do you think that downvotes are similarly misused? (I.e., to slap down controversial but value-add posts?)

My own experience is that the posts of mine that have gotten lots of upvotes have been thoughtful ones, not simple "party line" ones, and the posts of mine that have gotten downvotes have been thoughtful ones as well--just thoughtful ones that the majority disagreed with but didn't have any good refutations of. But my experience might not be typical. It is certainly more plausible on its face that both upvotes and downvotes would be misused, than that downvotes would be misused but upvotes would not.

Put simply, no.

There is nothing wrong with upvoting something you agree with, that makes a lot of sense. What I take issue with is downvoting something sincere because you disagree with it, but without supporting an alternative position. If the only signal is "this comment deserves to be gray because people disagree with it in their own personal ways", then nothing is learned.

Ok, fine, if you insist on my quoting your exact words, here is how you described what you call "the behavior required to get a karma cushion":

"I personally think that playing in to the echo chamber is a subtler form of abuse; making the people in the community progressively more unhealthy by carefully avoiding anything that looks or feels challenging.

I don't think a healthy community is one which encourages people to fat eachother up on sweet nothings and uncontroversial shower thoughts."

This is what you think upvotes mean, since getting a lot of upvotes is how you get a lot of karma. I don't see the point of quibbling over whether "groupthink" is a valid description of this; the point is that none of the behaviors you describe are using upvotes to identify posts that add value.

> If you would like to understand what I've said better, your first step should be to read it for the first time.

Please dispense with the snark. As far as I can tell, you are the one who is failing to read what you wrote, not me. Or at least you are failing to draw obvious inferences from what you wrote, like the fact that getting a lot of karma requires getting a lot of upvotes, so by describing the behaviors you think get you a lot of karma, you are describing behaviors that are rewarded by upvotes.

> There is nothing wrong with upvoting something you agree with, that makes a lot of sense.

It does? How does this square with the extremely negative portrayal you gave of the behavior required to get a karma cushion, which I quoted above?

> What I take issue with is downvoting something sincere because you disagree with it, but without supporting an alternative position.

I agree with this, but I don't see how it relates to "the behavior required to get a karma cushion". To get a lot of karma, it's not enough to just avoid downvotes.

Not all upvotes, but specifically writing things for the sake of avoiding downvotes or getting upvotes. If you write things mainly because you predict people will agree with you (and thus, at least not downvote), then I feel that's not going to make for particularly good discourse. I'm still mainly talking about downvotes here, I don't think the problems should be solved by changing the behaviour of upvotes.

> none of the behaviors you describe are using upvotes to identify posts that add value

Yes, because I'm concerned about the bad outcomes of what can be described as an economy based on avoiding unexplained downvotes.

> It does? How does this square with the extremely negative portrayal you gave of the behavior required to get a karma cushion, which I quoted above?

It squares with it just fine, but you have again misunderstood the point I am making, that other people seem to have understood just fine.

Consider making an effort to interpret what I've said in the ways that make sense, rather than searching for ways to interpret it that make it sound inconsistent.

P.S. you are yourself and not anyone else, so don't try to say what other people think, as though you know it for a fact.

Now that I've cleared up my earlier misstatement (see my other post about 7 or 8 minutes before this one), let me go back and take another look at the underlying point here, which is: how should upvotes and downvotes be used?

We agree that downvotes should not be used just to express disagreement. But to me, that seems to imply that upvotes should not be used just to express agreement (whereas you said you think it's fine for upvotes to be used just to express agreement). Even if people aren't specifically trying to write things for the sake of avoiding downvotes or getting upvotes, if upvotes are used just to express agreement, I think that creates the same kind of problem that using downvotes just to express disagreement does. People respond to incentives even if that response is unconscious.

To me, both upvotes and downvotes should be used in response to whether or not a post adds value to the discussion; a post can do that even if you don't agree with it, and it can fail to do that even if you agree with it. I think a downvote should mean "this post adds no value to the discussion and makes it harder to have a value-added discussion by adding noise". And an upvote should mean "this post adds above average value to the discussion".

In short, while I agree that usage of downvotes needs to be fixed, I don't think it stops with downvotes; I think usage of upvotes needs to be fixed too (if we assume that you are correct and that upvotes are mainly being used just to express agreement).

We do not agree on that, I did not say that. I think that downvotes are a perfectly good way to express disagreement. My one real caveat is that downvoting should only be an option when you have provided or upvoted a reply to the comment you are downvoting. That is, it is reasonable to downvote something you disagree with, but only if you disagree for a reason that has been expressed.

You may have your own ideas about upvotes, I think they're more or less okay. There are obvious downsides to upvote systems, but they serve a legitimate purpose, and there's no really straightforward alternative.

I agree that this is a bad thing, and I see that I did not properly describe the strategy I was advising. I did not mean "write enough things specifically tailored to whatever is going to get upvotes and avoid downvotes, so that you have a lot of karma". I meant "write enough things that add genuine value to the site, and eventually you will have enough karma that you don't care about getting downvoted". But I wasn't clear about that, which is my bad.

> you have again misunderstood the point I am making

Which point? Your point that downvotes should not be used just to express disagreement? I understood that point just fine from the start, and what's more, I agreed with it.

What I was having trouble understanding was your description of the kinds of posts that get upvotes; I now realize that's because I misdescribed the strategy I was advising, so we were talking at cross purposes. See above.

> that other people seem to have understood just fine.

Nobody else is posting at all in this subthread (the one starting with my original response to your "HN is kinda dying as a community", it's just you and me. So I don't know what "other people" you are talking about.

> Consider making an effort to interpret what I've said in the ways that make sense, rather than searching for ways to interpret it that make it sound inconsistent.

> P.S. you are yourself and not anyone else, so don't try to say what other people think, as though you know it for a fact.

Consider that maybe the actual issue had nothing to do with any of these things. See above.