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Add Reactions to Pull Requests, Issues, and Comments

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161–170 of 238 posts

Re: Add Reactions to Pull Requests, Issues, and Comments

#161

Post by moe »

joepie91_ wrote: post #124
adnzzzzZ wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone has to give a signal on why they disagreed with you as much as people don't have to give you a signal on why they agree with you. I don't get this argument. People may agree with 2 out of 5 things in a list and vote +1 because they don't care about the 3 other things. You still don't get that feedback from a +1, just like you won't get from a -1. There shouldn't be higher standards for disagreement based…

> Not everyone has to give a signal on why they disagreed with you On GitHub? They absolutely do. It's a platform for collaboration, not idle chatter. If you do not wish to support your disagreement, you probably shouldn't be posting anything there to begin with. EDIT: I've also already explained to you why 'agreement' and 'disagreement' are held to different standards. I'm not sure why you keep repeating this point.

> I'm not sure why you keep repeating this point.

Because your distinction is wrong.

A drive-by -1 is in no way different from a drive-by +1.

Both are equally useful. Both indicate how many people agree or disagree. Neither explains why someone agrees or disagrees.

Re: Add Reactions to Pull Requests, Issues, and Comments

#162

Post by ben336 »

bhaumik wrote: post #157

First* Slack, then Facebook, and now GitHub. Looks like reactions are replacing (or expanding on..) the unary like/upvote/heart expression for tech products. *Or at least the first time I've seen them used as an important feature.

I think Path was the first to do this: https://path.com/

Re: Add Reactions to Pull Requests, Issues, and Comments

#163

Post by southpolesteve »

This makes me think Github doesn't get it. Emoji comments are often used because there is no better way to interact with an issue/PR. What we need are better issue management tools. Polls, voting, triage tools, etc. Instead we got an easier way to post emojis. Feels more like a "look we have reactions like slack!!!" gimmick rather than a properly designed response to user requests for features.

Re: Add Reactions to Pull Requests, Issues, and Comments

#164

Post by inopinatus »

goldenkey wrote: post #151
rtpg wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internally when voting (informally) on things we do +1, +0, -0, and -1. Super helpful to be able to ask for everyone's opinion while they can also express the strength of their opinion. Feel like that would be very useful

+0 and -0 are equal..

Arithmetically true, but they have different IEEE 754 floating point representations.

Also, my inner mathematician understands that function limits can tend towards zero from above, or from below.

Zero ain't always just a big fat zero.

Re: Add Reactions to Pull Requests, Issues, and Comments

#166

Post by inopinatus »

mrharrison wrote: post #51

-1 or the thumbs down reaction, I think is a mistake. They aren't usually that constructive, because most of the time they are used as retaliation against a specific user, instead of constructive criticism. If someone downvotes you, you tend to downvote them. At the least, it should be a privilege to down vote, like SO and HN do. http://stackoverflow.com/help/privileges/vote-down

I'm not sure this is a downvote. It's a vote in favour of a negative and unlike HN-style downvoting, is tallied separately. You can even react with both thumbs-up and thumbs-down to the same issue.

With a tallied up/downvote system a la HN you can't tell, numerically, if a score of 1 meant "only one person cared" or "hundreds cared and there was furious disagreement".

Actually I'd be interested in a "top 100 most polarising comments" feed :-)

Re: Add Reactions to Pull Requests, Issues, and Comments

#167

Post by spoondan »

tamana wrote: post #149
spoondan wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The context of this feature is that users were using comments to react without providing substance. The primary motivation is to reduce the visual clutter of non-substantive comments. While we can agree about what users should do, users not behaving as we think they should is the whole point here. Removing the -1 reaction won't encourage people to articulate their concerns. Nor will it discourage people from writing…

It's naive to think that users will prefer the discreet way of expressing disapproval. They want to be loud.

Facebook and Twitter provide strong evidence that people will use reactions. I see no reason to expect that user behavior will differ when they want to express negativity. Facebook's decision to not provide this feature has long been rooted on the pretense that people will use it. That is the basis of this thread: that people will use it instead of commenting.

Also, it's really easy to disagree with what I wrote without suggesting I am naive.

Re: Add Reactions to Pull Requests, Issues, and Comments

#168

Post by joeyespo »

yawaramin wrote: post #158
joeyespo wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a pre-optimization. You can get the same level of information with two comments and vote exclusively with +1's, but without the general negative aspects of what's mentioned above.

Right, if you're asking every single issue poster ever to remember to post two comments specifically for voting, versus just posting their issue itself.

Not every issue needs an up/down vote. But with the addition of -1, all issues and _all comments_ on those feature requests now have one. Which takes us back to the negative consequences outlined in this thread.

Re: Add Reactions to Pull Requests, Issues, and Comments

#170

Post by alphapapa »

joepie91_ wrote: post #124
adnzzzzZ wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone has to give a signal on why they disagreed with you as much as people don't have to give you a signal on why they agree with you. I don't get this argument. People may agree with 2 out of 5 things in a list and vote +1 because they don't care about the 3 other things. You still don't get that feedback from a +1, just like you won't get from a -1. There shouldn't be higher standards for disagreement based…

> Not everyone has to give a signal on why they disagreed with you On GitHub? They absolutely do. It's a platform for collaboration, not idle chatter. If you do not wish to support your disagreement, you probably shouldn't be posting anything there to begin with. EDIT: I've also already explained to you why 'agreement' and 'disagreement' are held to different standards. I'm not sure why you keep repeating this point.

moe is right. And what is strange is that you keep repeating yourself.

    They absolutely do.
No, they absolutely don't--GitHub says so. You think they absolutely should have to, but they do not.

Here's an example: Alice posts a feature request on the issue tracker for Project Awesome saying that the project's mascot should be changed to a unicorn. Bob downvotes it. Neither person has provided an argument for their position.

According to you, Bob is required to explain why he doesn't want a unicorn mascot, but Alice doesn't have to explain why she wants one.

You are assuming that a positive argument will always be made in support of an assertion, and that therefore a negative argument must be made against it rather than merely a contrary assertion.

But it often happens that the pro side of an issue makes unsupported assertions and unreasonable claims, then the con side makes reasoned arguments, and the pro side proceeds to ignore the points raised by their opponents.

The real problem is anonymous voting. Anonymous votes are not very useful, because for all you know, the person voting doesn't even use the software in question. Voting within a team of collaborators could certainly be useful, even without substantiation, but "drive-by" votes by random Internet people are the problem.

EDIT: Ironically, this downvoting of moe's and my comments proves our points and demonstrates why anonymous downvoting is a problem. "We should only have reasoned arguments!" they say. But when reasoned arguments are presented in opposition to their claims, they merely downvote rather than making a reasoned counterargument. They do not do as they say.

And since the cost (in time and effort) of their anonymous downvote is far less than the cost of writing a rational counterargument, the level of discourse is driven further and further down as those who are willing and able to argue their positions rationally are discouraged from doing so. Why waste your time arguing with people who do so in bad faith?

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