Often, yep. Sometimes watching it go down is quite a trip too.
It's something an article I came across used as a conclusion while looking into how commenting communities can become friendly, turn into cliques, and then into "Join the Consensus or Die" cesspools:
>Numerous comment sections and message boards and forums probably have ups and downs between Community, Clique, and Cesspool outside of this example — I know I’ve seen it on Ars Technica as well. It looks to me like a general extension of human social habits, like an evolutionary necessity where feeling part of a group is comforting. Experience makes me believe getting upvote currency is a pathway to the pleasure center of the brain.
Yes, the "unlike-button" is the means to police the crowd and just have everyone behave on a consensual manner. Interesting enough, it only works on anonymous crowds b/c on social networks where you actually know the person, a downvote can actually have real-live consequences.
Reddit almost stumbled upon the golden formula. They have a feature that shows a comment is "controversial" in that it's being up- and down-voted a lot. Those comments should be featured top and center.
It's something an article I came across used as a conclusion while looking into how commenting communities can become friendly, turn into cliques, and then into "Join the Consensus or Die" cesspools:
>Numerous comment sections and message boards and forums probably have ups and downs between Community, Clique, and Cesspool outside of this example — I know I’ve seen it on Ars Technica as well. It looks to me like a general extension of human social habits, like an evolutionary necessity where feeling part of a group is comforting. Experience makes me believe getting upvote currency is a pathway to the pleasure center of the brain.
https://medium.com/@LongTimeLurker1stTimePoster/the-av-club-...