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Ask HN: Would it be nice to know who upvoted you?

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Re: Ask HN: Would it be nice to know who upvoted you?

#21

Post by ak39 »

The best part about HN is that you do NOT know who upvoted or downvoted you! I think the makers of this forum are wise also to prevent you from voting on posts that reply to you! That's next level "Grandpa" wisdom (and I am 46 but I still appreciate this architecturally embedded wisdom).

What I'd love however are these two features:

1) The ability to be notified that a user you are interested in "following" has recently commented or posted.

2) The ability to see which comments/posts of yours have been upvoted or downvoted in chronological order. (Sometimes I will sit with a static karma number for months and then I'll see a surprising +1 but fail to decipher which of my historical posts suddenly got upvoted. It's a good feeling but I'd want to know which post was responsible.)

Re: Ask HN: Would it be nice to know who upvoted you?

#22

Post by ak39 »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #16

No. I would however like to see downvotes come with a justification. I don't care who votes but it would be good to know what the reasoning for a downvote was. Up and down are not opposites in this context,

I would agree. But think of the logistics for this feature: in order for you to downvote, you have to provide a reason. Should we show the userId for the comment? If so, we defeat the anonymous voting feature. If not, comments can become fertile ground for trolling. (Of course admin can identify the anonymous comment writer but we do not want to create a mods-heavy forum a la Reddit).

I think a standard choice list for downvoting may not be a bad idea. The choice list can begin with all the regular logical fallacies (ad homimen, non-sequiter, false equivalance, appeal to authority etc). That way, I'd guess, the community improves its ability to argue thoughtfully and logically.

I love HN. It's the one forum I will never consider a total waste of time.

Re: Ask HN: Would it be nice to know who upvoted you?

#23

Post by zzo38computer »

I think it is unnecessary. (However, I would not complain even if it was implemented; I don't care either way.) (I don't use upvotes and downvotes anyways, and if such a new feature is implemented I probably would ignore that new feature. I don't use flag either, except to flag duplicates posted in quick succession to each other or posts that are entirely empty and are therefore not worth anything.)

Re: Ask HN: Would it be nice to know who upvoted you?

#25

Post by ctrlaltdev »

yesenadam wrote: post #20
ctrlaltdev wrote: post #8

I'm not on social media for a reason, that kind of features is part of the reasons I stay away from them. So no. If someone really wants to engage with me, they can leave a comment... that I will see or not.

But HN is social media, i.e. a website that would be/do nothing without other people on it also. (I hadn't really thought about that before seeing the books/talks of Clay Shirky, all excellent.)

I see your point.

Let's say that my consumption of HN is not social media-y - I don't care about the people that post, it took me 3 days to see your answer because I was checking for answers on another thread, and my focus on HN is content, not people.

I do understand what you mean. IMO, HN is closer to crowd sourced information than personal branding and personality cults that I see in 'social media' sites.

But there I am, answering to your comment. I am dooooooomed.

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