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The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

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Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#131

Post by wvenable »

dmos62 wrote: post #126
wvenable wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flagging is necessary to keep the site on-topic in my opinion. People will happily upvote controversy that has little value or importance to this site.

> controversy that has little value or importance to this site What do you mean by "this site"? The participants in this forum are the site. I've had discussions flagged that I thought to be valuable. Why would you want to get rid of controversy anyway? Do you want to discuss only popular old hat things? Stability under diversity is a sign of health in an ecosystem.

Participants want to discuss politics, current events, sports, etc. But this site is Hacker News and it is for specific subject matter.

If you want to discuss off-topic controversies, there's an entire Internet full of sites to have that discussion on.

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#132

Post by mjevans »

robbyking wrote: post #14
elhudy wrote: post #8

The glaring issue in this article (which I couldn't bring myself to finish) is that he equates downvoting to "evil or incorrect post(s)". Which would be true in an ideal world, but the reality becomes downvotes are equivalent to "I disagree with you". If plentiful downvoting is allowed, discourse becomes a popularity contest. Fortunately most of the experienced users here seem to understand this and reserve their dow…

I moderate a reddit community with ~200k subscribers, and I really wish I could disable downvoting. Automod takes care of most posts that violate our community rules, and I usually catch the ones that slip past within an hour or so. On the opposite end of the spectrum, quality posts are almost always downvoted immediately. (I assume it's by self-promoters hoping that it will cause their content to rise in the ranking…

Further:

A) It would be nice if the mods had a way to flag the post to make it require additional work to see on most / default clients.

B) If multiple mods sign off on a given post being a poor match for constructive discourse that is when most clients wouldn't even display the existence without a special viewing mode or preference. (This assumes an append / write-only forum.)

C) For all USERS, it would be nice if a special type of reply allowed for a post to be a "contrasting viewpoint", which might get displayed at the same node-level as the post being replied to, as part of a package of tightly related views on a topic.

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#133

Post by scpedicini »

winstonchecksin wrote: post #46
philipkglass wrote: post #44

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.

Anything which is Reddit level of quality in terms of contributing value. For example, low hanging puns that add no actual substantial information.

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#134

Post by massung »

No system will be free of problems or gaming.

But, doesn't hacker news actually have implicit down voting by way of time? HN isn't designed to be a searchable Q&A or forum. It's a "what's a currently popular" site. If something isn't good, it just disappears faster than the opposite.

Have I wished I could down vote things sometimes? Sure. But then I just wait 5 minutes, refresh, and it's gone.

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#135

Post by TheManInThePub »

CDRdude wrote: post #102
benlivengood wrote: post #40

I've been through several forum deaths. The cause is usually large growth from people with very different mindsets that downvote for essentially political reasons instead of encouraging good discourse. This makes the best people leave in short order. In a sense there's no way to structure a forum to avoid this. Being outnumbered by people who don't value open communication is unpleasant with or without downvoting. Fo…

I think slashdot’s voting system was well equipped to avoid that problem, but they faded anyway. Maybe it was the redesign? I think many of their innovations in 1999 would go a long way to resolve political downvoting today—-new accounts were unable to vote on comments, you were unable to vote and comment in the same posts, metamoderation to ensure fairness, and up or downvotes having to fit categories like ‘insightf…

Frankly, I couldn't agree with this more.

I've seen intelligent and insightful HN posts down voted simply because they went against the status-quo. If this is allowed to go on, people will be afraid of making controversial (but intelligent) posts, and this place will become another reddit.

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#136

Post by ryandrake »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #117
latortuga wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't slashdot have a feature kind of like this? Reasons why something was upvoted or downvoted alongside their score.

Correct. SoylentNews goes one step further, and adds +0 agree and -0 disagree . I'm not sure if such votes have any real effect.

I love the idea of +0 for Agree and -0 for Disagree. A comment’s score should be about how high quality it is, not how popular it is or how many people agree with it. Keep a separate agree/disagree count for users who are curious. Leave actual negative scores for low quality things like spam, flamebait and harassment.

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#137

Post by baryphonic »

amznthrwaway wrote: post #106
Tenoke wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Flagging is for problematic stories. If you follow at all which stories are rejected flagging is used as downvoting on a daily basis unless your definition of 'problematic' is extremely broad.

The notion that HN is well-moderated is bizarre. HN is exceptionally hostile to those who hold beliefs contrary to HN-acceptable norms. If you want to get banned quickly, criticize pg portfolio companies (even politely, with valid criticism), point out that white supremacist and other hate speech is welcomed so long as it is polite; point out that responses to hate speech are _not_ tolerated..... The community here u…

> If you want to get banned quickly, criticize pg portfolio companies (even politely, with valid criticism), point out that white supremacist and other hate speech is welcomed so long as it is polite; point out that responses to hate speech are _not_ tolerated..... > > The community here used to be absolutely amazing. 10-15 years ago the discussions here were actionable, and I was able to make valuable professional connections in the the comments. > > These days, that doesn’t happen. The discussions are lower value, less open minded, and more strident. It’s a pile of shit. > > And candidly, that’s why I’m logged into a banned account to post this. Uncomfortable truths can’t be posted from IPs/cookies/users that you want to preserve. Daniel Gackle will ban your ass if you point out, for example, that he tolerates and even welcomes extremely bigoted shit.

This entire comment is one of the most closed-minded, "lower value" comments I've seen on HN recently.

Complaining about how comments aren't open-minded, and also that "hate speech" and "bigoted shit" is the norm is something of a contradiction. If one is open-minded, he should be tolerant even of "hate speech." He should also be open to the ideas that hate speech is both very real or not real at all. Censoriousness is inextricably closed-minded.

I can't speak to PG portfolio criticism, but I think dang does yeoman's work in moderation. Only once have I seen a decision that I thought was harsh, and I think everyone is entitled to a bad day every now and then.

If you walked into my house and started berating and insulting me, I'd probably have a dim view of you, too.

Also, how are you posting from a banned account? That seems to go against the nature of being banned.

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#138

Post by vict7 »

amznthrwaway wrote: post #106
Tenoke wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Flagging is for problematic stories. If you follow at all which stories are rejected flagging is used as downvoting on a daily basis unless your definition of 'problematic' is extremely broad.

The notion that HN is well-moderated is bizarre. HN is exceptionally hostile to those who hold beliefs contrary to HN-acceptable norms. If you want to get banned quickly, criticize pg portfolio companies (even politely, with valid criticism), point out that white supremacist and other hate speech is welcomed so long as it is polite; point out that responses to hate speech are _not_ tolerated..... The community here u…

As someone that just stopped lurking, it's clear downvoting is used primarily as a "disagree" button. Case in point, this comment I'm replying to. I believe they're making a meaningful contribution to this discussion. Yet the downvotes have already commenced.

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#139

Post by ddevault »

Hacker News gets it most wrong with the flagging system, which is ripe for abuse (and is constantly abused). I sent this to dang some time ago, and was met with a muted response:

I realized something interesting the other day - users gain access to downvote comments once they reach 501 karma. I've always inferred that this is to make it so that users cannot downvote until they have demonstrated some understanding of the community and an ability to fit in with its norms.

However... users get access to flagging at 31 karma. A flag is basically a super downvote in several respects:

- It works on comments and posts

- It works on direct replies to your own comments

- Just a few flags is enough to remove content entirely

- A flagged post cannot be vouched for until after it's been removed, whereas a post can be upvoted before it's downvoted.

It's a bit weird to me that the OP version of downvotes is available to users 16 times sooner than the neutered version. I feel like HN has a problem with flagging being abused for censorship - this might provide an explanation.

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#140

Post by robocat »

joering2 wrote: post #73
benlivengood wrote: post #40

I've been through several forum deaths. The cause is usually large growth from people with very different mindsets that downvote for essentially political reasons instead of encouraging good discourse. This makes the best people leave in short order. In a sense there's no way to structure a forum to avoid this. Being outnumbered by people who don't value open communication is unpleasant with or without downvoting. Fo…

Would actually like to see a list of largest karma-wise HN members who left. By leaving I would say over 180 days inactive. Dang can you post the result please: SELECT hn_name, hn_karma, hn_last_active FROM comments WHERE TIMESTAMPDIFF(DAY, hn_last_active, NOW()) > 180 ORDER BY hn_karma DESC LIMIT 100

That would give no information about the reason someone left: there are a lot of reasons to stop interacting with hn that have nothing to do with the “best people leave in short order” theory.
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