Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty much all of HN is the "haphazard result of pg's opinion", no? That is an interesting way to describe creating something. I see no reason to mess with how HN has always worked, at least not where there's no obvious problem. I know people have strong feelings about downvotes, but those feelings are rooted in something other than discussion quality. Everything I think I know about how to keep HN from deterioratin…
>I know people have strong feelings about downvoting, but those feelings are rooted in something other than discussion quality. How do you know? People have different opinions about what constitutes and contributes to quality. From what I've seen, a lot of people assume Reddit's standard should apply here, and they seem surprised to learn that it doesn't. Those people do seem to be concerned about discussion quality.…
Taking the last point first: HN downvotes aren't arbitrary and excessive. In most cases, not 99% but maybe 90 and certainly 80, it's easy to see why a comment has been downvoted—except when you agree with it on a topic that pushes your buttons, in which case you will always think the downvote was unfair, but then your opinion can't be trusted. (That applies to all us; we just have different buttons and agree with different things.)
That does leave a margin where the statistical vote cloud converges on a negative score unfairly. But how often does that really happen—maybe 10%? Once you account for the many factors of randomness, e.g. in who happens to see a comment, there's not much room left to make outcomes more precise. Certainly a feeble "rule change" wouldn't do it; if you think it would, try running an internet forum and telling users how to behave. You will quickly know how King Canute must have felt. We'd be better off hiring someone fair-minded to go through all the comments, find those 10%, and upvote them. But what a fate to subject a human being to.
> a symptom of deterioration
HN downvote behavior has been stable for a long time, so whatever's going on, I don't think it's deterioration. But if it is, then I go with what Voltaire said about coffee being a slow poison: it must be very slow.
> a lot of people assume Reddit's standard should apply here,
People assume Reddit's standards apply on HN because Reddit is so much bigger than HN, and therefore much better known even among HN users. This is a simple consequence of size. It has nothing to do with what Reddit's standards specifically are or how high its quality is. I respect Reddit—Reddit is an amazing achievement—but it is not where HN should be taking lessons in discussion quality.
> How do you know? People have different opinions about what constitutes and contributes to quality.
I don't know, but I'll tell you why I say it. The emotional dynamic in downvoting is very strong. It stings to get downvoted—it feels like you've been downvoted. It sucks for me as much as anybody. From observing this reaction in myself, and how people's statements about downvotes are connected to their feelings in thousands of cases, I believe that this emotional dynamic accounts for most of what people say on the topic. That's not a criticism; it's just how we are. But given that, it's easy to see how the common belief about downvotes arises: it's not that there was anything bad about my comment (impossible!)—it must rather be that some schmuck disagreed. Therefore, to make the world a better place, people shouldn't be allowed to downvote for disagreement. This is wishful thinking.
I can tell you for sure that, whatever beliefs we have about it, people overwhelmingly downvote based on how they feel about a comment, probably in the first 5 seconds. They're not following any "guidelines". Most don't even know what the guidelines are. It's just lizard-brain like/dislike. Suppose we changed the rules to ask users only to downvote under more refined conditions. Whose behavior would that modify? Not most people's—only that of the very most conscientious users. But those are precisely the users whose instincts should be trusted in the first place.
That is why I don't think we should set up such a rule: first, it's wishful thinking; second, no clear upside. And third, HN's origins are in a kind of counterintuitive minimalism that I think is worth something, and that it takes a certain stubbornness to preserve. Everyone disagrees with the specific acts of stubborn preservation, but somehow people end up liking, or like/hating, the sum it all adds up to.