I don't learn anything on HN anymore, bring back the upvote count • Hacker News Board

Re: I don't learn anything on HN anymore, bring back the upvote count

#11

Post by AgentConundrum » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 9:58 PM UTC

I've noticed the same thing. I'll see a debate which is basically a thread of two people replying to each other with no other contributors. In this circumstance, it's impossible to distinguish between a situation where one person gets 10 upvotes and holds a well-agreed opinion and the other person gets 1 or 2 upvotes and is arguing his opinion just well enough to avoid being downvoted.

I understand that we're supposed to form our own opinions as to who we agree with, but sometimes its just not reasonable to take the time to do enough research. Sometimes, you want to learn from someone that actually knows what they're talking about.

Without some sort of vote indicator, it's hard to tell who has the most accurate opinion, except often in subjects like law, security, and seo where there are known experts that often chime in (e.g. grellas, tptacek, patio11).

I'd suggest that a form of "fuzzy vote counts" be implemented. Something to indicate either a relative score ("this comment is substantially higher voted than its parent") or just an approximate value ("unvoted", "few votes", "many votes") without a specific score.

Re: I don't learn anything on HN anymore, bring back the upvote count

#12

Post by wdewind » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 9:59 PM UTC

sosuke wrote: post #8

The highly voted comments still float to the top of the page don't they? When I was only reading the highly voted commetns I started to feel like I was only getting the popular opinion, especially so when it came to touchy topics. If HN does decide to turn the count back on I'd love an option to turn it back off in my own profile.

The issue with this is we have no way to compare replies. I don't actually care how nodes on the same level of the tree compare to each other, I only care about how they compare to their children replies (ie: counter arguments).

Re: I don't learn anything on HN anymore, bring back the upvote count

#13

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 9:59 PM UTC

mmaunder wrote: post #3

You need to ween yourself off your social proof addiction. The problem with vote counts is that two downvotes can start a cascade of reflex downvotes. Or at best, it won't get upvoted. When vote counts where active, this effect caused many instances where an excellent comment was found greyed out at the bottom of the page until a few smart HN folks with high karma voted it back up.

[deleted]

Re: I don't learn anything on HN anymore, bring back the upvote count

#14

Post by mikx » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 9:59 PM UTC

mmaunder wrote: post #3

You need to ween yourself off your social proof addiction. The problem with vote counts is that two downvotes can start a cascade of reflex downvotes. Or at best, it won't get upvoted. When vote counts where active, this effect caused many instances where an excellent comment was found greyed out at the bottom of the page until a few smart HN folks with high karma voted it back up.

This is the internet, the best and truthiest will always float up eventually.

Having a poorer experience is a perpetual compromise for something that can be corrected by vigilant readers.

Re: I don't learn anything on HN anymore, bring back the upvote count

#15

Post by famousactress » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 10:00 PM UTC

I miss them also. Was a weighted voting discussed as an alternative? One where the up/down vote is weighted against the karma of the voter? Seems like that would help elevate big-karma users to sort of meta-moderators and might help soften the concerns about reflexive voting?

And yeah, maybe for display the numbers aren't the best option.. just some sort of watered down "+" "++" "+++" type scheme...

Re: I don't learn anything on HN anymore, bring back the upvote count

#16

Post by kuroir » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 10:01 PM UTC

The point you make is totally valid; and now that I think about it, when I was able to see the upvotes I could at a glance identify the answers with one or more of the following:

1. Correct Answer (real, like a founder answering about his app). 2. Popular Answer (comedy, something people "lol" to).

Identifying the difference between those two is done with only common sense; but supposing you still lack of that, you can still feel what the community liked by looking at the numbers.

"50 upvoted this" that must mean something vs "3 upvoted this"...

Re: I don't learn anything on HN anymore, bring back the upvote count

#17

Post by kuroir » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 10:01 PM UTC

The point you make is totally valid; and now that I think about it, when I was able to see the upvotes I could at a glance identify the answers with one or more of the following:

1. Correct Answer (real, like a founder answering about his app). 2. Popular Answer (comedy, something people "lol" to).

Identifying the difference between those two is done with only common sense; but supposing you still lack of that, you can still feel what the community liked by looking at the numbers.

"50 upvoted this" that must mean something vs "3 upvoted this"...

Re: I don't learn anything on HN anymore, bring back the upvote count

#18

Post by lukifer » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 10:01 PM UTC

mmaunder wrote: post #3

You need to ween yourself off your social proof addiction. The problem with vote counts is that two downvotes can start a cascade of reflex downvotes. Or at best, it won't get upvoted. When vote counts where active, this effect caused many instances where an excellent comment was found greyed out at the bottom of the page until a few smart HN folks with high karma voted it back up.

Idea: a [view count] link. Once clicked, votes are ignored for that comment. You can vote, or get the social proof, but not both.

Re: I don't learn anything on HN anymore, bring back the upvote count

#19

Post by tolmasky » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 10:02 PM UTC

What I found weird is that the points went away but the greying effect stayed. The truth is that that goes a lot further in making sure I don't ready unpopular views (with my eyes I often have to copy paste it to a text editor before I can read it comfortably). I would much prefer all comments be the same font color and being able to see the score so I can make my own decision as to whether to read it or not.

Re: I don't learn anything on HN anymore, bring back the upvote count

#20

Post by StavrosK » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 10:03 PM UTC

wdewind wrote: post #7

mmaunder wrote: post #3

You need to ween yourself off your social proof addiction. The problem with vote counts is that two downvotes can start a cascade of reflex downvotes. Or at best, it won't get upvoted. When vote counts where active, this effect caused many instances where an excellent comment was found greyed out at the bottom of the page until a few smart HN folks with high karma voted it back up.

That is absolutely a fault in any social proof system. As I mentioned, upvotes need to be taken with a grain of salt. I still hold they are far superior to nothing. Edit: case in point: I'd REALLY like to know how many people upvoted mmaunders original comment.

I must agree with this, I find this feature one of the most missed. It doesn't even have to show the number of upvotes, just anything that will tell me which of the posts is more highly upvoted in a relative manner (e.g. normalise all comments based on the highest ones on the page and use a 5-number/color/whatever scale).