I'm curious how many people who have the ability to upvote or flag stories actually do so. For my part, I'm very conservative:
- I never flag stories; I may not find a story interesting, but I don't feel it's appropriate to impose my interests on others or 'police' their discussions.
- I rarely upvote stories, mostly because I'm usually browsing stories that are already on the front-page. Occasionally I skim through the new stories and if I see something interesting there I might upvote it.
- For comments, I upvote comments I find particularly helpful or insightful. I don't downvote comments very often unless they're particularly rude. However, I never downvote comments that are part of a discussion I'm having; I don't trust my impartiality in that case.
If my behavior is typical, then stories are being controlled by a 'vocal minority' who take the time to upvote or flag them. As in any group, the vocal minority tends to have the more fundamentalist / extremist points of view on a subject, which could lead to the outcomes TFA discusses.
- I never flag stories; I may not find a story interesting, but I don't feel it's appropriate to impose my interests on others or 'police' their discussions.
- I rarely upvote stories, mostly because I'm usually browsing stories that are already on the front-page. Occasionally I skim through the new stories and if I see something interesting there I might upvote it.
- For comments, I upvote comments I find particularly helpful or insightful. I don't downvote comments very often unless they're particularly rude. However, I never downvote comments that are part of a discussion I'm having; I don't trust my impartiality in that case.
If my behavior is typical, then stories are being controlled by a 'vocal minority' who take the time to upvote or flag them. As in any group, the vocal minority tends to have the more fundamentalist / extremist points of view on a subject, which could lead to the outcomes TFA discusses.