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What you say is never as important as how you say it. I noticed that if I came off as a self-righteous dickhead, people would disagree with me out of principle and if the person was still wrong they'd bring neutral "Sure, but" arguments to avoid the same thing happening to them.
The only time you can be a jackass is if you do it in a funny way or the person is so far gone it's the equivalent of default dancing on their grave.
What you say is never as important as how you say it.
In real life, maybe. But this does not line up with my experience at all on here or reddit. The up and down vote buttons are overwhelmingly used as agree/disagree buttons.
I try to be respectful in my disagreements, and often fail, but they usually doesn't have much of an influence how bring mercilessly down voted for disagreeing with the hive. And I've always watched people I vehemently disagree with, who have made reasonable and respectful disagreements, get down voted tons while people attacking them will get tons of upvotes.
It's nice to think that we respect different opinions if they are represented respectfully, but it does not seem to reflect the reality I've seen.
Well, I more meant that even if you're correct if you're a dick about it, people won't like it. Being incorrect and nice still isn't a recipe for people to agree with you though I've been spared downvote flurries once or twice because I was just politely ignorant. I think it's good to have at least a minor system to incentivize making correct, nice comments, and one that helps distinguish trash from quality posts.
Well, I more meant that even if you’re correct if you’re a dick about it, people won’t like it.
Respectfully (I'm honestly trying here, I hope it doesn't come off otherwise), I still don't agree. I've seen plenty of times where I'll respectfully disagree with someone and the other poster will be a complete dick back for no reason, but still line up with the agreement of the hive and get plenty more upvotes than I got.
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you that it will influence the outcome, but from my experience, clearly "agreeing with the hive" is overwhelmingly the most important factor when it comes to how many upvotes or downvotes you'll get. It's certainly not universal, as I've been surprised sometimes by how well my disagreement has been received, but generally speaking it's the case.
And we aren't talking about simply being wrong or right. One can be wrong, but not really strongly disagree, and still be accepted. I wouldn't be surprised that (removing being nasty), the harder you make it to maintain the position of the hive mind the more likely it is to get downvoted.
I can't think of a better system, but it's still deeply flawed when it comes to promoting quality posts.