every time someone posts this I add my 2 cents and say the same, please bring back the karma most useful.
I don't learn anything on HN anymore, bring back the upvote count
91–100 of 248 posts
Re: I don't learn anything on HN anymore, bring back the upvote count
#92You 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.
A great idea. You get to see votes only after voting, which eliminates social proof inertia and gives an incentive to vote. As long as you can't revoke votes (a la reddit), this would work beautifully.
Re: I don't learn anything on HN anymore, bring back the upvote count
#93Re: I don't learn anything on HN anymore, bring back the upvote count
#94[deleted]
Re: I don't learn anything on HN anymore, bring back the upvote count
#95You 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.
> The problem with vote counts is that two downvotes can start a cascade of reflex downvotes.
So? As you said, this is usually corrected. And, if points don't matter as so many people want to suggest, where is the harm in having some indicator of a posts quality. Please note indicator does not mean points.
I've been suggesting for some time now that high quality posts should be marked in some manner. No, rising to the top of the page is not a good manner, as it only affects parent posts.
Downvoted posts already get this treatment, even under the current system.
In fact, without some sort of quality indicator, points are useless.
Finally, their is a lot of discussion about how lack of points force people to read and research. That's all well and good, but I'm smart enough to know that I can't research everything, and their is value in knowing what the community thinks of a topic. It helps to steer me in the right direction.
Basically...
If you aren't going to use points to highlight good comments, then having points is useless, and they only serve those who think karma is worth anything.
Re: I don't learn anything on HN anymore, bring back the upvote count
#96I'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 suppose…
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). You assume that votes are a good indicator of who holds the most accurate opinion. My experience says that they are merely an indicator of who holds the most popular opinion, or who argues thei…
It's not perfect. But without it, anybody can just throw in their opinion or troll comment and if you're unfamiliar with the topic, you won't be able to tell the difference.
Votes are like a simplified version of facial expressions when talking in a group. Going off of a group's reaction is flawed too, but we do it anyway. It has more value to observers than no group reaction at all.
Re: I don't learn anything on HN anymore, bring back the upvote count
#97Nonsense, upvotes are meaningless. You're just too lazy to filter the content yourself.
Re: I don't learn anything on HN anymore, bring back the upvote count
#98Earlier 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.
That defeats the entire point of having people vote who know what they're talking about.
I watch my karma on reddit and HN very closely. It is very rare that I get reflexively downvoted as a result of initial voting, and when it does happen, I mention it and clarify my post and almost always see it even back out.
Re: I don't learn anything on HN anymore, bring back the upvote count
#99You 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.
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.
Why would the people need "high karma" to vote it back up? I ask this as someone with high karma. "showdead" is an option available to anyone, isn't it? I don't know the answer but I've always had it turned on at least.
Re: I don't learn anything on HN anymore, bring back the upvote count
#100You 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.
Bad idea. That doesn't help skimming for info, which is the main poster's problem - you have to read the comment before you decide to find out if it's upvoted. And once you've done that, you've already committed the time. Sound nice, but it's not practical.