I don't like that people keep talking about the voting system as if it's
"censorship". The posts in question don't get deleted. From what I'm hearing,
they get collapsed by default if you run the requested JavaScript code. And
if you don't run the requested JavaScript code, like me, all you see is the
date banner being colored red. The latter isn't even remotely like
censorship.
The former, well, still not even close to censorship. If hiding a post by
default is "censorship", then having your TV off by default (i.e. hiding
what's on TV) is "censorship". This is a completely absurd definition of
"censorship". It leads to the conclusion that TV Tropes "censors" most of its
own pages by collapsing them by default when JavaScript is enabled, that
Slashdot "censors" posts by collapsing them into one-line summaries, that
books having covers on them is "censorship", etc.
It's obvious why low-rated posts get collapsed by default when JavaScript is
on: it's meant as a convenience for readers, so that they can more quickly
skip posts that the community has deemed to be garbage. Is it really worth
it? Maybe. Is -2 too high of a rating to be the threshold for this? Maybe. Is
it censorship? Absolutely not.
