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

#41

Post by alexgartrell » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 10:17 PM UTC

mmaunder wrote: post #33

lukifer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's quite brilliant. How about up, down and abstain buttons and if you click any you get to see the vote count and you're done voting. It will encourage voting, remove the social proof influence and give the option to abstain.

There should be an option to abstain from voting as well, for those that don't know if it's a valid comment or not.

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

#42

Post by kmfrk » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 10:19 PM UTC

runjake wrote: post #29

Or at least shove it in a div or span and hide it by default, so those of us who want it back can style it unhidden.

That would completely defeat the purpose.

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

#43

Post by kmfrk » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 10:19 PM UTC

sebkomianos wrote: post #10

Having it as an option for everyone to choose if he/she wants it enabled or disabled could as well be a "solution"?

That would completely defeat the purpose.

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

#44

Post by stretchwithme » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 10:19 PM UTC

tolmasky wrote: post #19

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.

The fact that a comment is grayed out makes me want to read it.

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

#45

Post by JCB_K » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 10:20 PM UTC

nyellin wrote: post #39

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.

On the whole, I concur. However, for comments like your own, the votes are interesting, as a rough measure of whether the HN community agrees with you or not. (It's a rough measure because upvoting!=agreeing.) Clarification: I don't want to bring back vote counts, or even a general indicator of votes, like others have suggested. I approve of the hiding votes, but a creative compromise could be better than what we hav…

* a rough measure of whether the HN community agrees with you or not.*

It shouldn't be. Like you said, upvoting!=agreeing. It should be a rough measure of you making your point in a good way.

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

#46

Post by dwolfson20 » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 10:20 PM UTC

adharmad wrote: post #27

wdewind wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure - to be clear I'm not tied to upvotes as a number specifically, and I doubt anyone else is. But give us SOMETHING.

How about sorting comments in any subtree by the number of votes? That way hierarchy indicates the comments with the highest number of votes, while hiding the actual number itself.

That's the easiest and most effective solution, I think. But we could also do with an optional visual cue, since a lot of people want it.

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

#47

Post by ajj » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 10:20 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 agree.

In terms of learning new things, the vote count helps tremendously! You can tell that a security-related suggestion earning 50 up votes is sound (of course considering context), technology-wise. I've learned a lot about passwords, plaintext, server-side hashing, salting and related best-practices solely from HN comments.

Displaying scores might make the other aspects troubling (since group-think is supported unnecessarily, often disregarding novel thoughts or disagreements). But I've learned to ignore such things, especially since most of the conflicts are "opinions" anyway, so the value addition is somewhat limited.

In terms of actual facts and expertise though, nothing can beat the vote count!

Having said that, I am still not sure which one I prefer given that there is inherently a tradeoff between the two aspects.

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

#48

Post by jacques_chester » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 10:21 PM UTC

joelangeway wrote: post #35

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.

You put that excellently. Indeed, Hacker News was and should be a place where social proof is not desired.

Everyone agrees that social proof is deleterious.

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

#49

Post by stretchwithme » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 10:21 PM UTC

Maybe there should be 2 modes.

One for those just wanting to read and learn where they can see the votes but where the user is not allowed to vote.

And one for those wishing to vote where they can't see and be influenced by the votes of others.

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

#50

Post by tolmasky » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 10:22 PM UTC

stretchwithme wrote: post #44

tolmasky wrote: post #19

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.

The fact that a comment is grayed out makes me want to read it.

But seeing it say -10 wouldn't accomplish the same thing? Or are you implying that this is literally a swimming upstream situation for you and the shear physical difficulty of the task makes it appealing?