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

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

#101

Post by AgentConundrum »

danvet wrote: post #80
AgentConundrum wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very fair point. Unfortunately, when I don't know the subject matter at hand, social proof is pretty much all I have to determine good opinion from bad. Keep in mind that the title of this submission has to do with learning from HN, so that's the perspective I'm taking as well. If you don't know anything on a subject, the most popular opinion isn't necessarily a bad jumping off point for further research. I'…

You still have that rough idea of social proof in the comment ordering. Of course there's the occasional very recent comment sprinkled in, but I think the error this introduces isn't worse that popular, but slight wrong comments upvoted with herd-thinking. I like it this way even for discovering new things, especially since the lack of comment points prevent my brain from going into autopilot mode. Trying to grasp ne…

If you look at my original comment, you'll see I used the example of a conversation with only two participants as an example. In this situation, you don't even have the rough social proof of the comment order.

Ordering is flawed even alone, because it has certain biases in comment age as well. I've seen new comments with no votes shown above other, very highly voted comments.

I should mention that I'm not necessarily campaigning to bring back the vote counts, nor do I necessarily want them back (for reasons you describe well), but I do think they did have value, and we need a way to bring back that value while minimizing the bias. I'm not sure how to do that, but I do really like the "upvote, downvote, or abstain" concept mentioned in another comment on this submission, wherein the votes are hidden until you perform one of the listed actions. You can still view the votes, but you can't influence them after you know what they are.

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

#102

Post by vacri »

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.

How does that option help the main poster? Forcing him to vote on comments (even as abstention) is just meaningless mechanism that gets in the way.

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

#103

Post by jasonlotito »

Alex3917 wrote: post #28
wdewind wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 still hold they are far superior to nothing." I disagree. Since the new system was implemented the signal:noise ratio seems to have gone up. The fact that HN is more difficult to read now is a good thing; it forces people to think for themselves, and improves the overall level of discussion. I do agree that the voting should be shown after a few days, but for right now the changes seem to be making things better.

If points aren't being shown, why have them in the first place? What's the point?

Points should reflect the quality of the comment. If it's not being used for that, it's worthless to have.

Showing them days later, after the discussion is finished, is also fairly worthless.

I'd much rather have some indicator of quality posts. We already have an indicator for poorer quality posts. Their is value in knowing what your peers think.

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

#104

Post by JabavuAdams »

kenjackson wrote: post #79
JabavuAdams wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. No, absolutely not! You can only tell that other non-experts agree in some path-dependent fashion. I'll occasionally see highly-upvoted nonsense in an area that I'm expert in. This is very bad. This is some kind of cognitiv…

But that's a great opportunity for the expert to step in and say something valuable in reply. The high upvote count of the "wrong" response will lead to your response getting more readers. The fact is we're already half way bought in to this "social bias". Otherwise just get rid of the voting altogether. Get rid of karma. In fact, get rid of associating usernames with comments. But I think everyone realizes, even if…

> Get rid of karma. In fact, get rid of associating usernames with comments.

These two things are very different. I'd be all for getting rid of karma, but usernames provide identity.

I.e. when evaluating someone's comment it would be good to see other comments they've made that might provide insight into their biases.

1) username insight into what you think over time 2) karma insight into how popular your comments are

I want (1) and not (2) for my own learning. (2) is interesting in terms of studying group behaviour.

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

#105

Post by jacques_chester »

randallsquared wrote: post #93
ericd wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion - the OP is saying that it's a necessary filter.

"Everyone agrees"? :)

Everyone agrees that my sarcastic jokes are funny. Especially the metajokes.

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

#106

Post by zspade »

ericd wrote: post #90
jacques_chester wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone agrees that social proof is deleterious.

Not true, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion - the OP is saying that it's a necessary filter.

How can I see who's winning this argument without seeing the vote-count!

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

#107

Post by blhack »

I've said this in some of the other threads on this topic, but I'll say it again:

The huge (and incorrect) assumption that people are making about upvotes is that everybody reading the comments is stupid. We're not using the upvote count as a 100% perfect indicator of if somebody is correct or not, we're using it as an indicator of how many upvotes the comment has gotten. It's just one of several things that we can use to judge a comment's merit.

This information is useful, and I cannot fathom a benefit to withholding it.

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

#108

Post by wdewind »

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.

And yet what we've left in is the feedback mechanism that provides people a self-centered understanding of how well the community receives them. ie: People are still "scoring points," though maybe we have made the points less valuable.

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

#109

Post by d0m »

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.

But then, you need to have a little faith in HN and PG. Best posts are usually shown first. Try that: Check a new post and try to guess the votes for the posts at the top of the page. It's still the same algorithm as before.. posts with -4 are shown in light gray.. high voted posts are shown first, etc.

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

#110

Post by munderwood »

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.

What if the net number of votes a comment has received is hidden whenever it is between -10 and +10 (for example)? That way you are able to tell that a comment hasn't yet been rated highly, but also can't jump on the bandwagon of voting whichever direction the first couple of voters do. When a comment has a votecount somewhere near zero, you still have to think about it yourself (if you want to read it), but can also choose to ignore it if you only want to read already highly rated ones. If a comment at some point has, say, 12 votes and then receives three downvotes, it would return to the nebulous "small vote-count" status.

Another scheme I've liked on some sites is to show the counts for both up and downvotes, along with the total. A comment's having 10 upvotes and zero downvotes can be quite different from its having 100 upvotes and 90 downvotes, even though both equate to a net count of +10.

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