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Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

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Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#271

Post by revorad »

pg wrote: post #186
chaosmachine wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvoted comments are bad for the community. They are literally negative. Remove downvotes. Anything that truly deserves downvotes probably deserves flagging/deading, too. Downvotes change how you think about reading comments. Instead of "was this helpful?" you're thinking "do i love this or hate this?". It's polarizing, and as the number of users increases, it's easy for a comment to hit -4 in a couple minutes. Peo…

I've often thought of it. The reason I had downvotes originally was to deter people from saying things that were mean or stupid. But maybe the right way to deal with that is a separate mechanism from voting, as it is with stories. Maybe the right combo for comments is an uparrow, plus a flag link, and encourage users to flag comments that are mean or stupid. I'll think about the real solution more after I'm done read…

I propose: a "mean/troll" flag button in addition to the regular voting buttons for each comment. In addition, we need a mean/troll loserboard.

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#272

Post by ahoyhere »

mkr-hn wrote: post #261
ahoyhere wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason seems to be that HNers feel like they have to project an ultra-logical persona at all times. Even Spock-like. How'd it get started? I wish I knew. It's not just jokes. I've experimented: I can make the most insightful and practical comment in the whole thread, but if I use "cuz" or "gonna," or "man," or more than a single (maybe two) exclamation points in the whole thing, no upvotes for me! But the more ps…

I think that's why I've been spending more time back at Reddit than HN lately. They talk about the same stuff with the same depth, but they have more fun doing it. Even Einstein wasn't afraid to stick his tongue out for the camera.

Color me illiterate, but I couldn't find where on Reddit they talk about the same stuff? The startup subreddit looks dead and the programming reddit is quite different. I'd love a link or name!

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#273

Post by mkr-hn »

ahoyhere wrote: post #272
mkr-hn wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's why I've been spending more time back at Reddit than HN lately. They talk about the same stuff with the same depth, but they have more fun doing it. Even Einstein wasn't afraid to stick his tongue out for the camera.

Color me illiterate, but I couldn't find where on Reddit they talk about the same stuff? The startup subreddit looks dead and the programming reddit is quite different. I'd love a link or name!

Here you go: http://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/

As for other stuff, the stories you see on HN still end up there. Try to submit one and it'll point you to the story if it's been submitted. And if it hasn't been, anyone can submit stories.

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#274

Post by Kaizyn »

AmitinLA wrote: post #262
pg wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've often thought of it. The reason I had downvotes originally was to deter people from saying things that were mean or stupid. But maybe the right way to deal with that is a separate mechanism from voting, as it is with stories. Maybe the right combo for comments is an uparrow, plus a flag link, and encourage users to flag comments that are mean or stupid. I'll think about the real solution more after I'm done read…

I'm relatively new to this community, but I've thought for a while that the problem with any points-based system is the inherent competitive nature. One of the interesting things I've learned in improv classes is the "Yes, and..." structure that performers use to build on each others performances to create something bigger and better.[1] Structurally this may be as simple as implementing a mandatory "Yes, and..." str…

Yes, and what should we do if someone posts something that is not constructive or that cannot otherwise be built upon?

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#275

Post by enneff »

pg wrote: post #30

Incidentally, if anyone has any suggestions for technical changes/features/tricks that would help fix the problem, I'm all ears. Fending off the decline everyone thinks is inevitable for forums is the main thing I work on. It has been since practically the beginning.

http://www.levien.com/free/tmetric-HOWTO.html

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#276

Post by AmitinLA »

Kaizyn wrote: post #274
AmitinLA wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm relatively new to this community, but I've thought for a while that the problem with any points-based system is the inherent competitive nature. One of the interesting things I've learned in improv classes is the "Yes, and..." structure that performers use to build on each others performances to create something bigger and better.[1] Structurally this may be as simple as implementing a mandatory "Yes, and..." str…

Yes, and what should we do if someone posts something that is not constructive or that cannot otherwise be built upon?

You're right, this is strictly an attempt at prevention, not a cure. But it might be interesting to attack a problem like this on multiple fronts. Right now, however, most of the focus seems to be on the "cure" side of things.

What I'm curious about is what sort of data is available on these negative comments. If we were to identify (and agree) on a large enough sample population (n>30, probably) can we start seeing any trends in terms of downvotes, account age, posting frequency, etc? Do any of those correlate with a sample population of comments we identify as positive?

Other half-formed ideas I have that may be interesting: - mandatory cooling off period (one to two weeks) before account activation - analyzing downvotes by user and, once a threshold has been reached, putting them in a "time out." - being able to block certain users from appearing in stories once you've logged in

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#277

Post by oreilly »

pg wrote: post #30

Incidentally, if anyone has any suggestions for technical changes/features/tricks that would help fix the problem, I'm all ears. Fending off the decline everyone thinks is inevitable for forums is the main thing I work on. It has been since practically the beginning.

Use the same system that decays a post's weight on the front page to decay a comments weight on a thread.

This will balance out the uneven distribution of karma that is talked about above, as new comments will be seen and given a chance to voted on even well into a conversation.

Having done this, comments that stop being relevant to the conversation should drop to the bottom and naturally attract less attention. Ideally, this will leave trolling posts ignored. (This can be helped further by having user selected timeout apply. If comment / responses are mapped as a tree, hide all branches that have no new activity for the past x hours, allowing users to change x as they choose. Give visual feedback to a comments age by fading old comments)

This solves the 'income' end of the system, as karma should now be distributed a little more evenly over time.

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#278

Post by gruseom »

petervandijck wrote: post #265
gruseom wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you have a lot more experience than most of us. What's in the intersection of that and your observations of HN?

(Sorry I don't understand the question.)

I was just wondering if there are any interesting things you noticed on your own site that you've also noticed here.

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#279

Post by SHOwnsYou »

pg wrote: post #186
chaosmachine wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvoted comments are bad for the community. They are literally negative. Remove downvotes. Anything that truly deserves downvotes probably deserves flagging/deading, too. Downvotes change how you think about reading comments. Instead of "was this helpful?" you're thinking "do i love this or hate this?". It's polarizing, and as the number of users increases, it's easy for a comment to hit -4 in a couple minutes. Peo…

I've often thought of it. The reason I had downvotes originally was to deter people from saying things that were mean or stupid. But maybe the right way to deal with that is a separate mechanism from voting, as it is with stories. Maybe the right combo for comments is an uparrow, plus a flag link, and encourage users to flag comments that are mean or stupid. I'll think about the real solution more after I'm done read…

I think the problem lies in that the downvote has two distinct purposes:

1) People down vote to express disagreement. 2) People down vote to eliminate value-less comments.

There needs to be a separate function for each of these. Perhaps the current down arrow for disagreement and some sort of irrelevance flag which wouldn't impact karma, but would still make the comment fade or eventually disappear.

I typically approach down or upvotes to my comments as (dis)agreement.

What is important to me is furthering the discussion if someone downvotes me for disagreement.

Requiring a dissenting opinion with a disagreement downvote would not only satisfy my wanting to hear the objections to my comments, but it would also require the downvoter to have a good dissenting opinion (lest his post be flagged as valueless/irrelevant).

Requiring a dissenting reply with a downvote is for my own personal reasons, but I do think there needs to be a distinction between disagreement downvotes and irrelevance/valueless downvotes.

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#280

Post by dasht »

pg wrote: post #186
chaosmachine wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvoted comments are bad for the community. They are literally negative. Remove downvotes. Anything that truly deserves downvotes probably deserves flagging/deading, too. Downvotes change how you think about reading comments. Instead of "was this helpful?" you're thinking "do i love this or hate this?". It's polarizing, and as the number of users increases, it's easy for a comment to hit -4 in a couple minutes. Peo…

I've often thought of it. The reason I had downvotes originally was to deter people from saying things that were mean or stupid. But maybe the right way to deal with that is a separate mechanism from voting, as it is with stories. Maybe the right combo for comments is an uparrow, plus a flag link, and encourage users to flag comments that are mean or stupid. I'll think about the real solution more after I'm done read…

Here is an idea: Instead of deleting "down vote", instead, add "yay!" and "boo!" links.

A user can see the "yay!" and "boo!" scores of any recent post or comment.

"Yay!" and "boo!" scores do not effect karma or otherwise effect HN privileges.

(The idea is to allow the exchange of "push a button" feedback that, in some sense, doesn't count. Up/down votes can still work as always.)

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