Do we want to volunteer?
I would suggest up- and downvotes on this question to stand for "yes" and "no". Or feel free to post an answer. (And of course the mods should have the final say, because they would be the ones to be saddled with all the additional work.)
My vote against is on various grounds.
I don't sense that the present low thresholds are too high, so that serious members who are able and willing to contribute are disenfranchised. They just need to do some useful work first. It's a fair question what kind of evidence would be expected either way, and that's a question too for those who want to explore change. But I've often seen unexplained downvoting of good answers, which can only be puzzled out as personal dislike or some kind of petty revenge. I think it's sufficient to raise the spectre of someone new to the site who might run riot downvoting those who explain why their new post is poor as posted. The site exists as a resource for anyone who finds it interesting or useful, but that doesn't make equal voting rights for everybody an obvious goal.
Like many others I participate elsewhere and find a general relationship between quality of site and the application of moderation (in SE's sense and wider senses too) and the possibilities and constraints allowed by (e.g.) the SE system of reputation and privileges. I sense that many sites are marred if not ruined by low thresholds for participation, which result in lower standards and all too often lead to multitudes of silly, ignorant, nasty and hateful posts. The single most obvious example in my experience is Twitter (X) but I am aware of (much) more obnoxious sites (even in fields that include statistical work).
Naturally you can't tell precisely what might work better without trying it, a platitude. In this context, I cite another equally ancient platitude, that you need not try to fix what isn't broken.
This is a gut reaction. Sorry, but I haven't the inclination to read through all the existing Meta thread, but I am confident that if I am missing something important in the idea that this will be pointed out!
-1 The voting system doesn't need fixing by changing rep standards, the principle of voting by popularity is the problem.
The system doesn't measure quality directly and only superficially relates to how good a post is.
If lowering the required reputation is gonna do anything, then it is increasing the problems that the system already has.
If any changes should be made, then it is a removal of the system.
After reading the long post, let me regurgitate what I could comprehend: previous criteria of upvoting and downvoting would be reduced to encourage an otherwise a passive section of the community. To counter any form of dubious activity, tools the moderators use have been modified taking feedback from the moderators but they admit these won't be enough to deter any form of malice. To deter nonsensical downvotes, one has to mandatorily leave a comment (not publicly). Mostly it would be the revamped mod tools that would be used to avert any mischievous activities, at least that is what I could make out of it.
Now my take: I am pretty much conservative when it comes to lower what is already a low bar, as also noted by Nick Cox. It seems to be an over-ambitious endeavor which generates enough discomfiture in me.
This is not the place and time to argue whether those bars were and are still apt (they are). Even though apparently there have been preparations for over three months or so equipping the mods with new/modified tools (I am not aware of the specifics), chances are implementation of this venture would open a deluge of sock puppet accounts, and yes, the idea that registered account is a must would deter sock puppetry is quite shaky.
Here moderators do an excellent job in maintaining the site day in day out. The reviewers of the community also volunteer in clearing the review queue and detecting spam/bogus posts etc. Over all these, they would impose additional burden to gauge for any malicious activities thanks to the experimentation. I am not saying it would be impossible for the moderators to dole out the duty but what is the endgame here?
There is then the downvote. There is a reason why one needs to gain enough confidence in the community (in the form of the reputation of 125) before getting the privilege. Again, it would be insolent to think all new users are rogue who would go on a downvoting rampage or reactionary spree. But even a fraction of such activities would be primitive to the quality that site maintains. Yes, the system can detect serial voting but again due to the implementation, it would put extra pressure. Rep 1 users to be precise are novice and are not aware of the norms here and for all practical purposes, they don't pay tok much heed to the help page either. The existing bars provide them time to acclimatize with the ecosystem. Many come here due to urgency - they are in hurry to get solutions and whenever they feel they are not getting any useful substance, they would resort to downvoting. Maybe they won't involve in a rapid spree but the downvote was only due to that someone elicited clarification - that is only one speculative instance.
For the sake of argument, let's say, we agree in participating. What is the long term goal? Okay, this is not specific to this site and would be more generic. Over the years, we can say we have developed a good community which cherish and maintain a certain standard of repository of posts. If these minimum bars are lifted, would it alleviate the quality in a significant way? As a student of this subject, I must not throw my biased presumption that it wouldn't; if any experimentation indicates then, so be it. But think about it: any potential good user won't get deterred by the existing bars. They contribute, interact constructively, gradually gain reputations and subsequently become a part of the community.
I appreciate the efforts they are undertaking to assess how a certain number of users would add value to the site. But the thing is it seems to me quite half-baked. It is not good to be sclerotic but for seeking more contribution from a certain new users by removing the rational barriers is a no-no. I think SO's participation would be disastrous. Compared to SO, CV is way less intense. But that doesn't mean it should be the ground for such experimentation, at least not in the proposed form, imo.
I generally favour experimentation because sites can fall into a rut and let's face it, most online communities are pretty resistant to any site changes, however minor. But I really wish these had been separate initiatives. I'm less bothered by the removal of the upvote limit than the downvote limit & rep cost changes. Whatever tools they have developed for the inevitable consequence of the latter - a few annoyed new users mass downvoting people posting critical responses - surely this creates a lot of new and unnecessary work for the volunteer mods.
More importantly: the plan is NOT to revert the changes after the experiment unless there's a strong reason to do this, though this is not made very clear in the linked post.
Relevant text in the main post:
Because our test includes regular monitoring and clear guidance on when reverting the change is the best course of action, our plan is to retain these changes unless we see evidence they're causing negative impacts that we can't address quickly by making changes to tooling or automations.
And then more explicitly in the comments:
This bothers me. I don't really trust the company's judgment of whether the effects of the experiment are negative or not.
