51–60 of 475 posts
I assume that Jeff has changed his mind on this because Discourse does not have down-votes (with the caveat that Discourse has a different audience from HN). I wonder what made the difference?
So what presumably happened is that he noticed that philosophy, sound as it may be on paper, created a miserable atmosphere.
I would like the ability to see my ratio of upvotes to downvotes. I think it would help show me if I was applying the same zeal to promote ideas as I use to demote them.
I initially loved the idea of voting posts up and down. Thanks to seeing how it actually works on SO and here, well, I am not much of a fan anymore. At the very least, if I ever implemented it myself, I'd require that people explain why they are voting up, or voting down, before they could vote. And I'd not limit users from being able to vote until they magically get to the right amount of "karma". Without requiring…
Yeah, I really wish that HN required you to comment in order to downvote. Or even just required that a comment had replies before it could be downvoted; I don't care so much that every single person justifies their downvote as that the person getting downvoted gets an explanation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's easier to write a bad comment than a good one, so I don't think that downvoting bad comments should be more difficult than it is now. HN software already has little nudges that make it easier to gain karma than to lose it: - You can earn points but never lose them by submitting URLs for discussion. - You can't lose more than 4 points per post, no matter how many times it is downvoted. There is no upper limit to…
What’s the criteria for a “bad comment”? And how do you objectively evaluate it? I lurk and post once in a while. What I’ve noticed is that rarely is something downvoted for being factually incorrect (relatively speaking). You just have to offer a perspective that doesn’t conform with the hive mind and the downvoting essentially amounts to censorship of opinions.
When I see heated back-and-forth discussion chains I'll often find myself downvoting several comments and upvoting none of them, because sarcastic quippy retorts to bad comments are also bad comments.
I'll also downvote comments for factual inaccuracy, particularly if I don't have the time to patiently correct them. This only partially mitigates the damage and doesn't really help the original author to learn. When someone writes a comment with just a single big mistake, and they don't seem to have a history of willfully repeating it, that's when I am most likely to write a lengthy reply with explanation and citations.
Interesting, making downvotes costly seems like a good system. Though downvotes seem to work pretty well as-is for HN, I rarely see dead comments that were killed by downvotes rather than anti-spam features. If we take HN as reddit 2.0, what would be HN 2.0 I wonder? If I were the one to make it I'd create a system to promote the comments of people with professional expertise on the subject being discussed. HN has mo…
I initially loved the idea of voting posts up and down. Thanks to seeing how it actually works on SO and here, well, I am not much of a fan anymore. At the very least, if I ever implemented it myself, I'd require that people explain why they are voting up, or voting down, before they could vote. And I'd not limit users from being able to vote until they magically get to the right amount of "karma". Without requiring…
Yeah, I really wish that HN required you to comment in order to downvote. Or even just required that a comment had replies before it could be downvoted; I don't care so much that every single person justifies their downvote as that the person getting downvoted gets an explanation.
Getting it wrong for 12 years now: The Value of Downvoting, Or, How Hacker News Gets It Wrong (2009) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25633668 - Jan 2021 (1 comment) 10 Years In, Was He Right? “Value of Downvoting; How HN Gets It Wrong” - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23409231 - June 2020 (1 comment) The Value of Downvoting, or, How Hacker News Gets It Wrong (2009) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's easier to write a bad comment than a good one, so I don't think that downvoting bad comments should be more difficult than it is now. HN software already has little nudges that make it easier to gain karma than to lose it: - You can earn points but never lose them by submitting URLs for discussion. - You can't lose more than 4 points per post, no matter how many times it is downvoted. There is no upper limit to…
What’s the criteria for a “bad comment”? And how do you objectively evaluate it? I lurk and post once in a while. What I’ve noticed is that rarely is something downvoted for being factually incorrect (relatively speaking). You just have to offer a perspective that doesn’t conform with the hive mind and the downvoting essentially amounts to censorship of opinions.
Getting it wrong for 12 years now: The Value of Downvoting, Or, How Hacker News Gets It Wrong (2009) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25633668 - Jan 2021 (1 comment) 10 Years In, Was He Right? “Value of Downvoting; How HN Gets It Wrong” - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23409231 - June 2020 (1 comment) The Value of Downvoting, or, How Hacker News Gets It Wrong (2009) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=…
The value of downvoting, or how Stackexchange gets it wrong about HN's voting system. It's hilarious that they start with some misconceptions about downvoting, notice that they're wrong, and forge boldly ahead without updating their understanding. If my hottest takes are any indication, the reputation floor -4 for a comment, not zero as they suggest. I haven't noticed a ceiling on upvotes. Upvotes help stories rise t…
Correct, -4 is the lowest a comment can go: https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented
Interesting, making downvotes costly seems like a good system. Though downvotes seem to work pretty well as-is for HN, I rarely see dead comments that were killed by downvotes rather than anti-spam features. If we take HN as reddit 2.0, what would be HN 2.0 I wonder? If I were the one to make it I'd create a system to promote the comments of people with professional expertise on the subject being discussed. HN has mo…
It's easier to write a bad comment than a good one, so I don't think that downvoting bad comments should be more difficult than it is now. HN software already has little nudges that make it easier to gain karma than to lose it: - You can earn points but never lose them by submitting URLs for discussion. - You can't lose more than 4 points per post, no matter how many times it is downvoted. There is no upper limit to…
that's ok, the onus is on the downvoted poster to figure it out for themselves. usually that requires seeing a pattern over the course of a few downvoted posts rather than pinpointing it exactly from a given post.
most downvoted posts break one or more hn rules, but a few are downvoted ideologically, so a little resilience is required. strictly unpopular opinions can often be more tactfully rephrased and at least be accepted for discussion, if not agreement. this is a pretty good life skill to develop generally anyways.