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Meta HN: About the quality of discussion or rather the lack therof

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Re: Meta HN: About the quality of discussion or rather the lack therof

#31

Post by toomuchtodo »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #30
toomuchtodo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your thesis, and while I posted my above comment to reference what the "rules are, I upvote downvoted comments (including yours) when I think they are of substance and have been unfairly downvoted even when I may disagree with them. I try very hard not to downvote when I disagree with a comment, only if I believe it doesn't contribute to the discussion in a meaningful way. I'm often downvoted when my per…

I am in no way worried about internet points. My concern is trying to parse social signalling. Downvotes can express rebuke of undesirable behavior here. Ignoring that fact is not a good thing. I am very leery of concluding that downvotes can be wholesale ignored simply because I am a demographic outlier and many people will knee jerk disagree with me. That fundamentally breaks an important social feedback loop. I di…

> My concern is trying to parse social signalling. Downvotes can express rebuke of undesirable behavior here. Ignoring that fact is not a good thing.

My point, which I didn't convey entirely well, is that you can't use downvotes as a signal because there is no agreed upon criteria for when they should be used. Don't agree with the comment? Downvote is fine. Don't think the comment is on topic? Downvote. Have an emotional response to the comment? Downvote. I'm not sure how you can pull signal out of that noise.

I say ignore downvotes because they should not be used as the anti-validation of an idea, thought, or concept. The groupthink can be (and often is) wrong.

> It has been extremely helpful to me that really ugly comments aimed at me are often flagged to death.

Flagging does have guidelines for their use, and ugly comments should (IMHO) be flagged to death. There is a line between disagreement and incivility, but that's what HN mods are for (thread detachment, ban warning, bans) and their attention can be requested with those flags.

With all of that said, I think the HN moderators are fairly astute as to whether someone is participating in good faith, and taking corrective action if they're not. Sorry if we've gone off track. People are hard ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Assume positive intent until observation proves otherwise.

Re: Meta HN: About the quality of discussion or rather the lack therof

#32

Post by auxbuss »

xstartup wrote: post #20

I've stopped posting interesting comments because I get downvoted just because my opinion is different. Lately, I began to feel HN is full of people who sell their time. They just can't believe that anyone might be willing to work for free. Here is the evidence: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16400111 Albeit, it's not enough to draw this kind of conclusion. See this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=163…

My perception is that downvoting has increased. I often upvote downvoted comments that are perfectly reasonable, though I might disagree with them (or simply not care much), because downvoting can alienate folk from commenting – I've had that before myself – and I want to read the best content.

re ads: I hate them, but I would only contemplate downvoting someone claiming that the internet would die without them – the whole entitlement to push them to my eyeballs thing – unless the comment cited evidence.

Re: Meta HN: About the quality of discussion or rather the lack therof

#33

Post by DoreenMichele »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #31
DoreenMichele wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in no way worried about internet points. My concern is trying to parse social signalling. Downvotes can express rebuke of undesirable behavior here. Ignoring that fact is not a good thing. I am very leery of concluding that downvotes can be wholesale ignored simply because I am a demographic outlier and many people will knee jerk disagree with me. That fundamentally breaks an important social feedback loop. I di…

> My concern is trying to parse social signalling. Downvotes can express rebuke of undesirable behavior here. Ignoring that fact is not a good thing. My point, which I didn't convey entirely well, is that you can't use downvotes as a signal because there is no agreed upon criteria for when they should be used. Don't agree with the comment? Downvote is fine. Don't think the comment is on topic? Downvote. Have an emoti…

My point, which I didn't convey entirely well, is that you can't use downvotes as a signal because there is no agreed upon criteria for when they should be used. Don't agree with the comment? Downvote is fine. Don't think the comment is on topic? Downvote. Have an emotional response to the comment? Downvote. I'm not sure how you can pull signal out of that noise.

Very, very carefully and with a low statistical confidence level, relying quite heavily on other factors to inform your conclusions.

As stated above, I think it is problematic to ignore them entirely. I don't see how I could state that more clearly.

I'm aware that I generally think a great deal more about social stuff than most people I meet. I'm aware I do sometimes overthink it and sometimes the answer is "Someone fat fingered it and there really is no social signalling to be derived from it."

Re: Meta HN: About the quality of discussion or rather the lack therof

#34

Post by Nomentatus »

xstartup wrote: post #20

I've stopped posting interesting comments because I get downvoted just because my opinion is different. Lately, I began to feel HN is full of people who sell their time. They just can't believe that anyone might be willing to work for free. Here is the evidence: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16400111 Albeit, it's not enough to draw this kind of conclusion. See this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=163…

Most of the downvotes that most people on HN will receive simply mean: "I sure hope that isn't true." (Even though you've cited a peer-reviewed journal and they've got nothing but hope.) So the more novel and significant the contribution, the better the chance of being downvoted into oblivion, in my experience.

But keep commenting, some will read it and knowledge that challenges prejudice (prejudgments) always spreads quite slowly at first. Then later nearly everybody convince themselves they've ever believed anything else.

Note that the above is true for most contributors, but most downvotes on the site are directed at a small minority of people who commonly comment without reading the article, or didn't understand it, or blunder through general ignorance or profound bias; so most downvotes are still legit.

Re: Meta HN: About the quality of discussion or rather the lack therof

#35

Post by pasabagi »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #33
toomuchtodo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My concern is trying to parse social signalling. Downvotes can express rebuke of undesirable behavior here. Ignoring that fact is not a good thing. My point, which I didn't convey entirely well, is that you can't use downvotes as a signal because there is no agreed upon criteria for when they should be used. Don't agree with the comment? Downvote is fine. Don't think the comment is on topic? Downvote. Have an emoti…

My point, which I didn't convey entirely well, is that you can't use downvotes as a signal because there is no agreed upon criteria for when they should be used. Don't agree with the comment? Downvote is fine. Don't think the comment is on topic? Downvote. Have an emotional response to the comment? Downvote. I'm not sure how you can pull signal out of that noise. Very, very carefully and with a low statistical confid…

I have doubts about what exactly the signal is you're receiving in any case. Superbowl ads are popular. Agatha Christie is popular. Racism is popular. Many, many awful things - indeed, most awful things, are very well liked by most people.

As I see it, the only possible content of votes is popularity - which, when it comes to quality, is a very bad metric. In a relatively small, educated group like HN, it's a little bit less diabolically awful than it might be if it was in, say, 1930's Germany, but it's still the same metric.

Re: Meta HN: About the quality of discussion or rather the lack therof

#36

Post by DoreenMichele »

pasabagi wrote: post #35
DoreenMichele wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point, which I didn't convey entirely well, is that you can't use downvotes as a signal because there is no agreed upon criteria for when they should be used. Don't agree with the comment? Downvote is fine. Don't think the comment is on topic? Downvote. Have an emotional response to the comment? Downvote. I'm not sure how you can pull signal out of that noise. Very, very carefully and with a low statistical confid…

I have doubts about what exactly the signal is you're receiving in any case. Superbowl ads are popular. Agatha Christie is popular. Racism is popular. Many, many awful things - indeed, most awful things, are very well liked by most people. As I see it, the only possible content of votes is popularity - which, when it comes to quality, is a very bad metric. In a relatively small, educated group like HN, it's a little…

That does not fit with my experience of participating here.

Re: Meta HN: About the quality of discussion or rather the lack therof

#37

Post by krapp »

bjourne wrote: post #25
krapp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I thought downvotes were to be used on posts which don’t move the discussion or contribute to it. For example, non-sequitors or inaccuracies. Judging which direction is “wrong” sounds like opinion abuse to me. Downvotes can be used for any reason at all, as can upvotes. AFAIK only flagging has guidelines.

Obviously, it CAN. But down voting for "any reason" (for example, should I down vote your comment because I think you are wrong?) is unlikely to foster a collegial environment. For example, many Ask HN posts are questions asking for opinions. So you help the poster out and write your opinion. Then some dofus comes around who is to lazy to write an opinion of his or her own but wants to express disagreement by down vo…

Downvoting for disagreement is probably the most common reason for downvoting, after accidentally not upvoting because the arrows are too small.

Letting people downvote for any reason frees up space that would otherwise be taken by petty or banal comments. If a downvoter had something to say worth reading, I would rather they commented, but if they can't put in the effort, then the board is better off with just their vote. Better still with their complete silence, but people get emotionally involved and feel they have to contribute something.

Also, I've found that most obviously pointless downvotes either get corrected or stay at -1. I haven't seen many comments voted down further than that which didn't have some obvious issues. People shouldn't be discouraged - these are meaningless internet brownie points we're talking about.

Re: Meta HN: About the quality of discussion or rather the lack therof

#38

Post by yesenadam »

xstartup wrote: post #20

I've stopped posting interesting comments because I get downvoted just because my opinion is different. Lately, I began to feel HN is full of people who sell their time. They just can't believe that anyone might be willing to work for free. Here is the evidence: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16400111 Albeit, it's not enough to draw this kind of conclusion. See this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=163…

Well, why care about downvotes? Maybe 20 people read it and are glad you wrote it, 1-2 people downvote. Don't let that stop you.

I've put more thought into the strange ratings of movies on IMDb. There are many reasons for this, but one is - it seems the, er, less discerning movie-goers tend to do more voting. Many people never vote. Just that alone means the crap movies get more and often higher votes. Similarly with music topping the charts. But on IMDb the voting's not everything. There are user comments where you can have your say. People know the movie ratings are often silly.

p.s. Do people anywhere like ads much? People in advertising aside perhaps.

Re: Meta HN: About the quality of discussion or rather the lack therof

#39

Post by yesenadam »

jnordwick wrote: post #11

Group think is getting worse. If you have a minority opinion it is more difficult to avoid the bottom of the heap, the standards for a post rise dramatically, and even then there is no guarantee. Sometimes you comments will hit the negatives regardless. ( Edit: heres my latest -2 comment which i really don't understand https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16401221 ) There are some sacred cow on HN too that you cannot…

Hehe I had a look at your comment.. It started:

"Not new. Only read the first and last page if the paper.."

And you have no idea why that might be downvoted? I don't think you can have tried to understand. Maybe the downvoters got no further than me (i.e. the bit I quoted) which already has arrogance, ignorance, carelessness—or so it seems—and had already had enough.

Re: Meta HN: About the quality of discussion or rather the lack therof

#40

Post by yesenadam »

jnordwick wrote: post #21
dang wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's upheld all the time. The proportion of that stuff is no greater than it used to be. As pg once put it, "note those words most and probably". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4922380

In writing you call those "weasel words": "words and phrases aimed at creating an impression that a specific or meaningful statement has been made" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word Essentially, if you were being honest, you would just say on topic is whatever we decided it is, since the intentional ambiguity basically comes down to that.

Throwing what seem utterly baseless accusations of dishonesty and bad faith ('intentional ambiguity', 'aimed at creating an impression that' etc), and somehow you're the good guy here?

Would somehow "Topic X is never allowed" be somehow better? That would be silly, but even then there would be arguments about whether a story was topic X. Well, anyway, that guideline seems sensible to me. Not hard to understand why every word is there, for those not blinded by frustration (or whatever you were blinded by when you wrote that). I'm a huge fan of Weasel Words, Don Watson's excellent book, and I can't see a similarity. If you're so sure this place is controlled by evil forces, you should live somewhere else, no?

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