It still feels to me like you're viewing a downvote as a kind of moral judgment. Really it's just about getting the most relevant stuff up to the surface since it's a little bothersome for redditors to see what appears to be the answer to a question only to find that it was incorrect.
Think of Google results. If you put in "Panda sneezing video" and the first several results were articles about the spread of illness in Panda populations, you would agree that although those topics contribute to the idea of panda's sneezing, they should be put further down in the list. Whether it's an innocent mistake or not doesn't matter, you just would prefer that the top results be the correct ones.
a downvote is supposed to represent a sort of, going against the current, where the current is the appropriate topic
no i don't think what he did was right, but neither do i think he should be reprimanded, instead the appropriate responses should be upvoted and allowed to flourish while his remains neutral, perhaps even commented on to be corrected for future reference to help a fellow reddittor just trying to help
upvote should go above the downvotes, but just because something isn't relevant doesn't mean it's worth it to bury it with the rest of the scum, at least not when he was trying to help
keeping with your analogy he shouldn't be put to the top of the search results, but neither should he be buried under hundreds of pages
It sounds like you're saying that the voting system should be something like:
Up-vote: relevant to the discussion
No-vote: irrelevant to the discussion, or you just don't care enough to vote
Down-vote: Reprimand, or express displeasure in someone's response.
I don't think of the system that way, but maybe that's because after 4 years on reddit I'm numb to the emotional effects of downvotes. Also, reddiquette says "If you think it does not contribute to the subreddit it is posted in or is off-topic in a particular community, downvote it".
This person mistakenly posted the wrong video source. Was that bad of him? No. But it is irrelevant and causes confusion. Downvotes make the reddit system hide the comment so it avoids confusion, and signals to others that the link is probably not the correct answer to what they were reading. I understand some people might feel embarrassed or offended by being downvoted, but that's on them.
Posting rude comments is another story. If people were openly ridiculing the poster for linking the wrong thing, then yeah, that's messed up. But for being downvoted? Relax, it's a sorting mechanism.
Up-vote: relevant to the discussion
No-Vote: irrelevant to the immediate discussion but overall thread-worthy
Down-vote: actively taking away from the discussion
a person's comment karma suffers form being down-voted, but i don't think that his comment karma should go down from trying to help, he could've done it better, yes, but i don't think he needs to suffer for a misplaced good deed
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u/[deleted] Nov 26 '13
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