Thank you @lemon for your humanitarianism. Your colleagues' altruistic sacrifices are appreciated and remembered.

Like a team of antibodies that bind to the antigens of pathogens at various sites. Nod to @herenow's immunology analogy.

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Science can be wielded for good or evil.

There are giants who innovate for humanity. Heroes like @lemon who put themselves in harm's way in the field to help the helpless...

and there are Big Pharma that maximize profits by selling life saving drugs at exorbitant prices with help of peddling doctors & pharmacists.

It would be wise to know the difference.

A moderate dose of skepticism is healthy in a world of deceptions guided by self-serving predispositions. However, too much skepticism may result in paranoia. Counterproductive to oneself and society. The two forces of behavioral economics at play.

That would depend on personal pet peeves.

Some may view Trump as the world’s most dangerous troll. Others may idolize him as savior worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize.

Perhaps a camp out there sees me as a troll... despite my good intentions of liberating GoK from status quo bias.

"You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." - Harvey Dent in the Dark Knight (inspired by Nietzsche)

@michael: “Resolve the symptom or the root cause. Anonymity creates the opportunity for online bullying. The loss of the mask theoretically makes one somewhat more careful and responsible in their online personas.”

Yes, it’s true that individuals cloaked in anonymity are uninhibited to act in ways they normally wouldn’t. Each one of us are anonymous on GoK, hence susceptible to losing composure on occasions. However, only a few members are chronically engaged in incivility to the point of borderline trolling. These unruly individuals can be identified, hence easily ignored. As studies have shown, ignoring trolls is a relatively effective measure devoid of vicious circles.

Philip Zimbardo, professor emeritus of psychology at Stanford University, have shown in his famous prison experiment that almost everyone is capable of evil acts if placed in the wrong contexts. “The Lucifer Effect” has been reproduced in over 25,000 behavioral experiments around the world.

Professor Zimbardo concludes that it’s our “social circumstances that determine which of our many mental templates, our potentials, we develop."

I’d argue anonymity sinks deeper when opportunists are granted no-barrier-to-entry accessibility to hide behind anonymous down-votes. This begets an anonymity within anonymity scenario. Unlike uncivil members, this type of unidentified form of incognito trolling can be pervasive and difficult to ignore. Anonymous down-votes are faceless and can be misconstrued as negative feedback from anyone.

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An alternative solution if down-votes remain:

Divulge all identities of those who up-vote or down-vote, separating the two tallies.

For example, our GoK avatars/handles could be displayed when cursor is hovered over the up-votes & down-votes tallies. Perhaps a simple #overlay coding. This transparency feature would shine light on habitual bullies. With greater visibility, predators once hiding behind bushes with their vendetta fangs may be thwarted from pouncing at their victims indiscriminate of contents’ quality.

@herenow

I like your initiative and enthusiasm! lol

But I don't believe this poll will be a fair representation of the communal voice. Just my opinion.

As you mentioned in the GoK feedback thread, there may be certain users who are trying to "game the system" with multiple accounts or mob alliances as revealed by the studies I've just shared. These are proponents of down-voting who aggressively wield this tool to their advantage, and to the ill-effects for the larger body of the community.

Moreover, bystanders who see early negatives votes may be more inclined to conform by adding a few more. The so-called hive-mind phenomena.

@ASB

I’ve compiled five academic research papers revealing the flaws of down-votes. Findings are summarized in bullet points for easy reading. Literature download link provided via WeTransfer for each.

In case their scientific merits are in question. These academic research papers are conducted/written by a team of postdoctoral scholars in computer science from Stanford University, in collaboration with Cornell University or Max Planck Institute. Their data-driven research via machine learning algorithms is supported and funded by their Stanford Graduate Fellowship and a Google Faculty Research Award, in cooperation with Disqus, Twitter, among many major commenting systems.

Studies such as these hark back to why major social sites across the field in the U.S. and China have abandoned the down-voting system, particularly the type used by our GoK.

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How Community Feedback Shapes User Behavior
we.tl/t-h9NZdGYkPm

- “We find that negative feedback leads to significant behavioral changes that are detrimental to the community”

- down-voting (negative evaluations) can “cause users to post lower quality contents,” or worse comments… and are perceived by the community as such, hence “valued less by others…”

- down-voted victims are more likely to subsequently evaluate their fellow users negatively by down-voting others, “perpetuating a negative feedback loop… a vicious spiral of increasingly negative behavior that is exactly the opposite of the intended effect.”

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Antisocial Behavior in Online Discussion Communities
we.tl/t-3mRYEhCCno

- “Studying the evolution of these users from the moment they join a community up to when they get banned, we find that not only do they write worse than other users over time, but they also become increasingly less tolerated by the community. Further, we discover that antisocial behavior is exacerbated when community feedback is overly harsh.”

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A few bad votes too many?: towards robust ranking in social media
we.tl/t-7jgWgbUTyR

- Susceptibility of down-vote abuse where increasingly, a “small fraction of malicious users are trying to game the system by selectively promoting or demoting content for profit, or fun.”

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Social Influence Bias A Randomized Experiment
we.tl/t-forItRx9wB

- Downsides of early down-voting by result in “snowball effect” of “irrational herding,” a “hive-mind” “mob mentality” of negative reinforcement.

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Anyone Can Become a Troll: Causes of Trolling Behavior in Online Discussions
we.tl/t-9e6z0eVR5T

- “ignoring bad behavior is an effective way of discouraging it, and one that social network sites might profitably explore. But at the same time, these sites will need a way to step in and actively prevent certain types of behavior when necessary.”... Permanent banning recommended, not negative reinforcing down-voting.