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To Paul Graham

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: To Paul Graham

#11

Post by noodle »

tjmaxal wrote: post #2

This seems like as good a place as any to ask this: Can only some people down vote? B/c I have seen posts with negative scores and as I am only allowed to up vote, I have wondered how someone gets a negative score next to a comment?

i'll answer this, although this probably isn't a good place to have asked.

HN is filled with karma-based features. one of those is down-voting. you're not given access to down-voting comments until you reach a certain level of karma yourself.

if you've contributed enough to the community to reach a certain karma score, then you are trusted with more features.

see: http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

Re: To Paul Graham

#12

Post by gte910h »

bdickason wrote: post #5

As someone who recently discovered HN as an alternative to digg/reddit I am thankful as well. Things I love: 1) People downvote trolling and negative/witty comments 2) The interface gets out of your way 3) It updates constantly 4) The content is exactly what I'm looking for... and exactly what I couldn't find anywhere else 5) People are genuinely here to help. I am eagerly anticipating launching my startup so I can p…

Yeah, but they need to make votes non permanent. It's a crapshoot if you'll hit the up or down arrow on a mobile device or iPad when you try to rate stuff.

Re: To Paul Graham

#13

Post by [deleted] »

tjmaxal wrote: post #2

This seems like as good a place as any to ask this: Can only some people down vote? B/c I have seen posts with negative scores and as I am only allowed to up vote, I have wondered how someone gets a negative score next to a comment?

[deleted]

Re: To Paul Graham

#14

Post by jokermatt999 »

gte910h wrote: post #12
bdickason wrote: post #5

As someone who recently discovered HN as an alternative to digg/reddit I am thankful as well. Things I love: 1) People downvote trolling and negative/witty comments 2) The interface gets out of your way 3) It updates constantly 4) The content is exactly what I'm looking for... and exactly what I couldn't find anywhere else 5) People are genuinely here to help. I am eagerly anticipating launching my startup so I can p…

Yeah, but they need to make votes non permanent. It's a crapshoot if you'll hit the up or down arrow on a mobile device or iPad when you try to rate stuff.

I can see why they are permanent; it makes your votes feel like they mean something. But please, can we at least get an allotted number of "vote revokes" per week or something? I agree, it's too easy to misclick on an arrow on a touchscreen, and there's nothing that can be done.

Re: To Paul Graham

#16

Post by edw519 »

I imagine hn owes a lot of success to its simplicity.

I was always confused by slashdot's filters and the threads in almost every other forum, with Post #18 replying to Post #7 and Post #27 replying to Post #3, but only 10 posts visible per page. Busy people don't have the time to wade through stuff like that, so all you're left with are the trolls.

hn's nested threads built with are so simple that they're brilliant. No horizontal scrolling, no flipping between pages, just click "reply" and you're good to go.

I have no idea how much time and effort pg puts into hn, but I'm sure it's nontrivial. Something as good as hn doesn't get that way purely organically. Also, I would guess that more of his energy goes into the software, not the site's output. Why deal with an issue once when you can build something that will deal with it forever?

It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway: thank you pg!

Re: To Paul Graham

#17

Post by thenduks »

gte910h wrote: post #12
bdickason wrote: post #5

As someone who recently discovered HN as an alternative to digg/reddit I am thankful as well. Things I love: 1) People downvote trolling and negative/witty comments 2) The interface gets out of your way 3) It updates constantly 4) The content is exactly what I'm looking for... and exactly what I couldn't find anywhere else 5) People are genuinely here to help. I am eagerly anticipating launching my startup so I can p…

Yeah, but they need to make votes non permanent. It's a crapshoot if you'll hit the up or down arrow on a mobile device or iPad when you try to rate stuff.

Agreed. I'd be ok with, after voting, a new link appended to the status line (1 point by so-and-so...) that just undoes your vote. Even if that is permanent (eg, can't vote again).

Re: To Paul Graham

#18

Post by tjmaxal »

tjmaxal wrote: post #9
tjmaxal wrote: post #2

This seems like as good a place as any to ask this: Can only some people down vote? B/c I have seen posts with negative scores and as I am only allowed to up vote, I have wondered how someone gets a negative score next to a comment?

Thanks Everybody!

Sorry if this wasn't the right place to ask. I am really proud to be part of such a unique community.

Re: To Paul Graham

#20

Post by alanh »

jokermatt999 wrote: post #14
gte910h wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but they need to make votes non permanent. It's a crapshoot if you'll hit the up or down arrow on a mobile device or iPad when you try to rate stuff.

I can see why they are permanent; it makes your votes feel like they mean something. But please, can we at least get an allotted number of "vote revokes" per week or something? I agree, it's too easy to misclick on an arrow on a touchscreen, and there's nothing that can be done.

Better & simpler solution: Bigger buttons on touchscreen devices, preventing mis-clicks in the first place
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