My personal mantra on this is to focus on upvoting.
If you see something you like, upvote it! Also, if you're not happy with the stuff you see.. by all means, submit some links that you think are interesting.
A couple of times I've submitted stuff that was perhaps a little off topic or not explained very well.
The frustrating thing was that when a submission got upvoted by other people who obviously found it interesting as well, all the comments were from people who just wanted to point out that the article was not interesting to them.
I'd much rather people just ignore stuff they don't like. Leave it for other people who do find it interesting to discuss.
all the comments were from people who just wanted to point out that the article was not interesting to them.
That was the impulse for this suggestion of mine: I was trying to think of a system that acknowledges the existence of these dissenters without encouraging them to occupy too much space on the comments page.
Oh I'm not saying your suggestion is a bad idea. Not at all.. The placebo idea is actually kinda clever. :)
But I think in general it's better just to be mindful that different people have different interests. I'm glad that I'm exposed to a broad range of topics on this site, even if I don't find all of it interesting.
Although, that said.. the obvious link bait type articles "Top 10 ways to blah blah" are pretty annoying. :P
I wonder if it would be possible for downvotes to count, not against karma, but only for an individually calculated gravity? This way, you could accelerate the fall of links you don't like, but only for yourself.
If you see something you like, upvote it! Also, if you're not happy with the stuff you see.. by all means, submit some links that you think are interesting.
A couple of times I've submitted stuff that was perhaps a little off topic or not explained very well.
The frustrating thing was that when a submission got upvoted by other people who obviously found it interesting as well, all the comments were from people who just wanted to point out that the article was not interesting to them.
I'd much rather people just ignore stuff they don't like. Leave it for other people who do find it interesting to discuss.