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

#131

Post by Sakes » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 11:27 PM UTC

wdewind wrote: post #112

ericd wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has far less value than you might think. When this community was 100% startuppers, that worked better, but now there are so many people who don't have first hand experience that are willing to upvote anything that sounds correct that it's lost a lot of its value. It's now a dangerous positive feedback loop. High vote counts tend to be very convincing to all but the most discriminating people, it's not the mark of…

What you've just told me is the community is broken, not the system.

No, what he is saying is that the system that worked for a small community of like minded individuals does not work for a large diverse community.

The upvote system used to work because it consisted of a lot of similar people saying, this is a good point, or I like this.

Today's community is much more diverse, which is inevitable when you have a quality service/product/community/yadda yadda.

>> In total, Hacker News now sees about 90,000 unique visitors per day. http://newsgrange.com/ycombinators-hacker-news-reaches-1-mil...

The old system just doesn't mean what it used to. People are looking for new strats to preserve the original culture as best they can.

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

#132

Post by jrwoodruff » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 11:28 PM UTC

lukifer wrote: post #18

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.

No. It's overly complicated for the problem that's trying to be solved. I would have to weigh voting on a comment against seeing how many other people voted on it for EVERY comment. I just want to scan smart comments and learn the sides of an issue quickly.

What is the problem we're trying to solve again, anyways? And do the multiple downsides mentioned here multiple times (and heavily upvoted each time) really outweigh the downside of whatever that perceived issue is?

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

#133

Post by docgnome » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 11:29 PM UTC

blhack wrote: post #120

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.

I hate this assumption that everybody on HN is stupid. We're not. HN is one of the smartest communities on the internet. I'm not saying that everybody here is completely immune to what you're talking about, but this isn't digg. We're not just going to heap on the downvotes because we're trying to follow the pack. In fact I've found the opposite to be true; HNers seem to be really good about correcting downvotes. Comp…

I agree with what you're saying, but I'm not entirely sure this is a totally conscious reflex. I'd be interested in seeing a study where comments are rated with one set showing a low or negative score, the same comment with a high score, and then again with a neutral score. Given to three different groups of course.

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

#134

Post by ericd » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 11:29 PM UTC

wdewind wrote: post #112

ericd wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has far less value than you might think. When this community was 100% startuppers, that worked better, but now there are so many people who don't have first hand experience that are willing to upvote anything that sounds correct that it's lost a lot of its value. It's now a dangerous positive feedback loop. High vote counts tend to be very convincing to all but the most discriminating people, it's not the mark of…

What you've just told me is the community is broken, not the system.

It's just not as self-selecting as it used to be. What worked for the community in the past doesn't necessarily work now or going forward. At least a bit of regression to the mean in the community is inevitable if it grows (which it has, by a lot).

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

#135

Post by ronaldj » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 11:31 PM UTC

I miss the voting. I don't even bother reading comments anymore.

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

#136

Post by mixmax » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 11:32 PM UTC

I absolutely agree - and since it's impossible to know whether a top comment in a thread is there because it was just posted or because it has a lot of upvotes the sorting of the comments doesn't really give me any information. This begs the question: If I can't see the votes and have no easy way of knowing which comments are highly rated why have a voting system at all? What is the purpose if not to serve as a guideline for the users?

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

#137

Post by evo_9 » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 11:33 PM UTC

Thanks for posting this. This is exactly how I feel about it.

The one upside to this change I guess is I'm spending much less time on H-N now.

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

#138

Post by espeed » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 11:34 PM UTC

So have two types of browsers -- those who choose to see vote counts, and those that don't. And discount the votes of those that do.

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

#139

Post by ericd » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 11:34 PM UTC

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"? :)

Yeah, I should have more faith in the commenters. Not used to attempts at humor here...

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

#140

Post by Sakes » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 11:34 PM UTC

mixmax wrote: post #123

Sakes wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely agree, having upvotes visible fostered a herd mentality. What I really like is there is less of a knee jerk reaction to assigning value to a post. You can assume it's value based upon placement, but in order to determine it's value you must actually read what they say. What I don't understand is why people need to be told what is valuable. With an ever changing community, I don't see how you could foreve…

That's simply not true - "Comments with high scores seem to have slightly higher scores than they would have, but comments with low scores seem to have about the same. Probably because the -4 limit on displayed comment scores was already concealing the actual score. " http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2465002

I read that slightly differently. I read that as meaning there is a greater disparity between the high voted comments and the low comments.

I don't see it addressing the quantity of highly voted comments vs quantity of lower voted comments.

Good point though. It does definitely question my assertion that the herd mentality has negatively affected the value of upvotes. But I don't believe it disproves it.