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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)

#151

Post by bhupy »

josephg wrote: post #107
tediousdemise wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a huge fan of no downvote button, so much so in fact that I don't think users of any karma level should be able to do it. Why concentrate this power into the hands of a privileged few? It's a representative system where we vote certain users into high karma, but they needn't return any favors and can subsequently downvote things that are otherwise suitable for the platform. Privilege can, and will, be abused in f…

I feel like downvoting on HN is a way of saying “No. We don’t behave like that here”. It’s one of our community’s tools for preserving, teaching and enforcing our values with newcomers. Yes, it’s open to abuse. But it fills an important social function. And from that perspective, of course it’s limited to people who’ve been involved in the community awhile.

Isn’t that what flagging is for?

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

#152

Post by II2II »

Tenoke wrote: post #81
klyrs wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

I have come across flagged stories that looked like they would form the basis of an interesting conversation, noticed a string of problematic comments on the story, and agreed with the story being flagged.

Sometimes the problem isn't with the story or disagreeable opinions. Rather, it is with the tone of responses.

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

#153

Post by tpmx »

wvenable wrote: post #145
freedomben wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that flagging has value, but it is grossly misused to suppress discussions that are on topic but are outside of the overton window. Generally speaking I think HN is wonderful, and if staying wonderful means we have to tolerate censorship, I'll gladly make that trade, but I do wish people had thicker skin (that's a problem on all sides by the way).

Individual comments are rarely flagged for anything other than outright spam or harassment. I browse with "show dead" turned on. I have seen entire heated topics killed but that kills both sides of the argument equally. What value is a 500-comment talk-over-each-other argument, fundamentally about politics even if on-topic, on this site? I doesn't seem like something we should waste time on.

The fallacy here: when you're only exposed to stuff that everyone agrees about, you're missing out.

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

#154

Post by jerrac »

CSSer wrote: post #56
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I initially really liked this idea. I think the only problem is that it could lead to requiring more moderation. It's very hard to enforce quality. Right now I'm imagining a bandwagon chain of "You suck!" or other low quality comments just for the price of downvoting. I guess you could impose a minimum character requirement. At any rate, the idea of it being visible only to the user being downvoted is somewhat novel…

Having to work harder at moderation seems acceptable to me. And it'd be fairly simple to implement a "You can't just say 'you suck' when downvoting. If you do, you lose your downvoting privileges permanently." policy.

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

#155

Post by mjevans »

CSSer wrote: post #56
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I initially really liked this idea. I think the only problem is that it could lead to requiring more moderation. It's very hard to enforce quality. Right now I'm imagining a bandwagon chain of "You suck!" or other low quality comments just for the price of downvoting. I guess you could impose a minimum character requirement. At any rate, the idea of it being visible only to the user being downvoted is somewhat novel…

Removing content from a discussion IS moderation. That's why the idea is tying a 'reason for moderation' (the reply, or any reply existing at all at least) to the moderation action.

Such a moderation comment might be anything, but the more egregious examples:

Illegal content (of some sort); A threat upon persons or property (E.G.); Hate Speech; other things that a reasonable person would agree do not belong with a discussion; or just being Wildly off-topic.

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

#156

Post by josephg »

jonnycomputer wrote: post #116
josephg wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like downvoting on HN is a way of saying “No. We don’t behave like that here”. It’s one of our community’s tools for preserving, teaching and enforcing our values with newcomers. Yes, it’s open to abuse. But it fills an important social function. And from that perspective, of course it’s limited to people who’ve been involved in the community awhile.

Most people just use it to signal disagreement. I just did so now.

Don’t use downvotes to signal disagreement. It goes against the implicit and explicit guidelines of HN. And it drags HN closer to reddit.

Even if you see other people using downvotes for disagreement, that doesn’t make it ok for you to do the same.

Downvotes are for when people violate the norms and values of our community without thoughtfulness or self awareness.

The difference is subtle sometimes, but your comment is exactly the kind of thing I downvote. Low effort, dismissal / rejection of the community’s norms without nuance or justification beyond “well other people do it too so that makes it ok”.

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

#157

Post by robocat »

noxToken wrote: post #34
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…

Downvoting can also have a snowball effect. If someone disagrees with you, especially in a contested topic where it's opinion or unclear who is correct, downvotes signal other people to also downvote. You can see the effect on Reddit. Comments that hit -1 can still recover. Comments rarely recover after -3 or so. The only counter is for the commenter to edit and call out readers for frivolous downvoting.

> The only counter is for the commenter to edit and call out readers for frivolous downvoting.

That usually earns a downvote from me. People commenting on downvotes is boring and usually shows a lack of insight, for example obviously making zero effort to understand why their comment is poorly received, or blaming a conspiracy, or blaming groupthink. I have occasionally answered “why the downvotes” questions, but it usually feels like a waste of my time to do so.

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

#158

Post by listenallyall »

bena wrote: post #91
noxToken wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvoting can also have a snowball effect. If someone disagrees with you, especially in a contested topic where it's opinion or unclear who is correct, downvotes signal other people to also downvote. You can see the effect on Reddit. Comments that hit -1 can still recover. Comments rarely recover after -3 or so. The only counter is for the commenter to edit and call out readers for frivolous downvoting.

I have a comment on reddit that was both downvoted to nearly -100 and was given gold. I was given the award because the actual information I gave was correct. Which someone mentioned in a reply. It was downvoted because no one liked the answer.

There is definitely a phenomenon where truthful/factual but "inconvenient" comments are much more vigorously downvoted than false, inaccurate or incorrect ones.

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

#159

Post by type0 »

massung wrote: post #134

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.

Actually instead of counting down-votes HN software could just count how often a post was up-voted and then that vote regretted (reversed) and adjust the visibility to boost or silence. But that is still susceptible to misuse so there should be a limit on how often that would count.

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

#160

Post by type0 »

blargpls wrote: post #84
jasode wrote: post #65

I think a critical missing context of reposting an old 2009 article is that a newer post in 2011 makes downvotes free instead of costing reputation: >Jeff Atwood announced change of policy -- "Downvotes on questions no longer cost the casting user 1 reputation, so they are effectively “free”. [...] So, it’s imperative the question list have a high signal-to-noise ratio, and removing the penalty for those users who do…

Downvotes on questions are free, downvotes on answers cost 1 reputation (see https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/7237/how-does-reput... ).

Ah, this explains why it gets more and more outdated.
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