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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)

#361

Post by downandout »

saalweachter wrote: post #356
downandout wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be incredibly active on here, and then I started getting downvoted on virtually every comment, likely for political reasons. I have all but stopped commenting compared to my previous activity. It just stopped being fun. Even posts I make that have nothing to do with politics, that only point out provable, factual information, get downvoted. I have over 13K karma, even after losing a few thousand points over…

Browsing your recent comments, have you considered ... not commenting about downvotes? I see a lot of "Why am I getting downvoted for this?", "Group think, downvotes, blah blah blah.", "I'm going to get downvoted for this but...", all of which are just magnets for more downvotes. I think if you just stopped commenting on the downvoting, well, you'd still get the odd comment downvoted from time to time, because hey, y…

You saw a recent thread about it in my history, but that is not something I normally comment on. I’ll bring it up every now and then when I say something entirely factual because I find it funny that people will downvote indisputable facts simply because they don’t happen to like what the fact says about their preferred narrative. But this was happening long before I ever started talking about them.

It’s appropriate to talk about here because the voting system is the topic of this article.

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

#362

Post by r00fus »

benlivengood wrote: post #167
CDRdude wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Slashdot got popular and the insightful comments got drowned out by Funny+5 because it's low effort karma building that feels like being popular. I learned my lesson and try to only inject humor into otherwise useful comments on HN.

to my recollection you didn't gain karma on funny mods. So a completely boneheaded comment may net -8 karma, but still show up as +5 Funny which would be the "ironic" Funny comment.

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

#363

Post by everybodyknows »

confidantlake wrote: post #328
biasKillsHN wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't agree on the moderation. The bias in favor of Apple is extreme. I genuinely don't know if the mods are actively paid off, if Apple astroturfs, or whatever. But it seems those threads are disingenuous. It's impossible to form evidence because good criticism of Apple is often deleted. Meanwhile other threads are dumpster fires.

There was an article about bad service at apple stores. I commented that I had mostly positive experiences. Was downvoted.

This is clearly a minority opinion, but in my view well-stated factual anecdotes that the majority find uncomfortable deserve upvote, always.

But that's not what they get, not even here on HN.

The high karma threshold is helpful, but I doubt raising it further would do much. Some qualitatively different vetting mechanism is wanted. Thought about the problem a lot, but so far reached only a few inchoate notions.

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

#364

Post by vendiddy »

kodah wrote: post #187

I've been downvoted to [dead] before, though I've never gotten mad about it. One trend I have noticed is that on HN you won't necessarily be downvoted for your idea but you definitely will be downvoted for how you present it. If you come off as vitriolic or angry, you can expect a proportionate response. Frustration seems to be tolerated intermittently.

I wish downvoting harder. I'd prefer a system where down voting requires selecting or writing a reason on why you are downvoting.

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

#365

Post by DoreenMichele »

rcurry wrote: post #311
Hiopl wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also baffled by his position. I often think that downvotes on HN serve to reinforce conformism to an accepted set of values and ideas. Which might be okay if, say, you want to "immunize" a community against racism, sexism or fake information, but isn't great if issues (as in politics or even in tech on a social level) are a lot more nuanced and there might be plenty of room to explore ideas off the beaten path (a…

I agree with you 100%, I love HN and have been here for years but the downvoting feature disgusts me. Either allow a post or don’t, but this weird “fading” of someone’s post just because some people don’t agree with what someone has to say strikes me as petty and cheap. HN should be bigger than that.

It gets faded to signal to other people "this has been downvoted" because you can't see the karma score next to the comment anymore like you could in the early days. One of the things this signal does is it provides the opportunity for corrective upvotes by people who feel "That didn't deserve to be downvoted" which is one of the cultural traditions here.

I think the downvote system here works remarkably well. It's a very big problem to never allow any kind of signal of disagreement or whatever and the system here is intended to keep singal-to-noise ratio high.

It's a big forum and anyone can join. There is no fee to join. You don't need an invitation to join.

You need mechanisms for helping people learn "This is not welcome on HN. This is not how we do things here." to try to keep Eternal September down to a dull roar so HN can do what HN does better than any other forum I have ever seen, which is why I hang here so much even though it's never been an easy thing for me to be here.

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

#366

Post by dang »

krapp wrote: post #353
dang wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For many years now, we tell users that we're banning them when they have an established history on the site: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... . Shadowbanning is mostly for spammers and serial trolls. There's lots of past explanation at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23686672 and https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... . I think vouching dates from 2015. If…

Things have been a lot more equitable since pg was running the show. Although to be fair sometimes you come along a bit late and people don't actually see your comment. If it's not still on the first page of their threads list they're probably never going to notice it. Maybe there should be a message when someone logs in to let them know what flags are against their account.

Yeah, that's a problem. I'm often as much as a couple days behind in looking through flagged comments.

I think if we build any more software around banning/penalties, it might be some kind of probation system, i.e. a series of temporary bans, maybe with exponential backoff, and with permanent bannage only as an end state. I can think of reasons why it might work better, including: (1) humans tend to do well with feedback loops; (2) it might feel less personal (in the bad sense of the word); (3) it would be easier for moderators to do a lot more of it. In the optimistic scenario, we'd get a better community and less ill feeling about getting moderated, which would be great. The current path is psychologically too hard and leads to burnout.

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

#367

Post by clairity »

diob wrote: post #358
crispyambulance wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so worried about it. There's certain number of "tar-baby" subjects/opinions that can get someone downvoted on HN really quick... like suggesting Peter Thiel is an asshole, or saying anything negative about crazy libertarians. But HN is ALL about discussion. It's a relatively safe place to float an idea and hear some provocative opinions. The techno-libertarians don't actually bite. Stackoverflow, on the other…

Case against it being all about discussion though, my original comment has been voted down for some reason. Please folks, just debate me or post a counterpoint. I think at the very least tie ability to vote down with commenting. In other words, once the user has replied to the original comment, they can vote it down if they desire. You might think this is a safe place, but I've come to just avoid commenting anything…

> ‘I've come to just avoid commenting anything like this that might get "hive minded" into oblivion.’

that’s exactly when you should be commenting, otherwise the community is lulled into false conformity. contentious topics require more diversity of thought and more considered words, not less. internet points don’t matter, just the food for thought that comes with broader discussions.

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

#368

Post by dang »

josephg wrote: post #156
jonnycomputer wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

Downvoting for disagreement has always been ok on HN! There has certainly never been a guideline against it, and the case law is clear: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314.

I think the idea that things should be otherwise actually comes from Reddit (no?) which takes this to a triple back flip level of irony.

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

#370

Post by r00fus »

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.

For me the fuzzy litmus is whether it "promotes knowledge or aids the discussion".

Despite whether I agree with it, I upvote anything that I learn something new from.

Factual incorrectness is often downvoted, but usually only if there is a reply that points it out.

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