Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

stackoverflow.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 475 posts

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

#401

Post by brudgers »

crazygringo wrote: post #198

It's kind of amusing that the entire premise of this article is undone by the aside: > update: Apparently it is possible to downvote comments, which I never realized. But while downvotes seem useful for comments where there's a lot more scope for false information, trolling, etc., I'm not sure what the additional value would be for posts -- they're either popular or not, and you can still flag posts that are actively…

Atwood is smart, but the social sophistication of StackOverflow mostly came from Spolsky. I don't know if they are still available, but Atwood and Spolsky had a regular phone call that went out as a podcast from the earliest days of the StackOverflow project.

In terms of the social structure of Spolsky thought "How do I move the Turtle in LOGO" [1] was a good question for the site (he wrote it).

Atwood thought it was a bad question. Judging people's character by the questions they ask became standard. And people have an excuse to be rude and abusive on the site.

Which is unfortunate.

[1]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1003841/how-do-i-move-th...

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

#402

Post by coding123 »

grawprog wrote: post #392
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 think the problem when it comes down to it is there's generally more than one kind of comment as well as more than one kind of reason someone downvotes. You've got your objective factual comment Your subjective factual comment And your opinion based comment. I'm probably missing some. These can all be combined sometimes into one comment. Then you've got your reasons for downvoting. Disagreeing Factually incorrect W…

Most of the time I see downvotes with no replies it means the person generally disagrees. I upvoted you by the way :)

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

#403

Post by DoreenMichele »

6510 wrote: post #396
jldl805 wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak for the person you are talking to but this site has much less tolerance for deviation from cultural norms - which is both a good and bad thing. Compared to even niche subreddits there is much less room for "freewheeling" (can't think of a better term for it) comments. It has costs but what for what you pay, you gain in a more serious and sober environment.

Its not serious at all, its a news aggregator that by very silly means filters stuff to the top that is worth reading. Serious is when you have skilled professionals pick the topics and an interesting debate is when preferably everyone disagrees.

I initially downvoted this. I've reversed that and decided to reply.

HN is bigger than it used to be which has helped introduce an Eternal September effect, but HN is the funnel for YC. You need an HN handle to apply to YC.

For people interested in starting a business and applying to YC, there is potentially millions of dollars at stake. Especially in the beginning when it was smaller, your comments here were used to help them evaluate your application to their seed funding and business mentorship program.

Lots of latecomers seem oblivious to that function and think it's just a silly discussion forum. But there are people who still know better and the people who understand that what you say here can make the difference between becoming the next Reddit (a YC company) or Dropbox (another YC company) or never getting anywhere with your business dreams help skew conversation here in a more serious and respectful direction than you are going to find on most forums that really are just discussion forums and that's it.

That's not what HN is. HN is the foyer you have to get through to have any hope of joining a large and powerful "old boys club" that has created many millionaires in a relatively short period of time.

Being an ass here is a good way to be politely turned away without ever knowing why: "Sorry, not YC material." Because they pick which applications to approve and fund primarily based on the people, not the idea.

That's not a secret. They talk about it incessantly. Anyone who doesn't know just hasn't paid attention to the huge volumes of info they put out about their application process.

Their "No assholes" rule is widely known.

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

#404

Post by 0x0203 »

What I find interesting is that users voting on other's comments seems to have become the assumed best way of organizing user-generated content. In my mind, I think the question isn't "do we allow or disallow down votes," but "should we even let users vote?"

My impression is that voting systems ultimately end up as popularity counters, and that in and of itself can skew the motivations of participants. Additionally, there's motivation to maliciously hide opposing viewpoints, late-comers rarely get to meaningfully participate due to their "score" starting lower than longer lived and thus higher scored content, and well-intentioned discussion about contentious or nuanced topics can easily get buried.

What the "best" way of sorting user content is will surely depend on the goals of the platform, but if deep, informative discussion is the goal, maybe using a popularity contest isn't the right strategy? Perhaps giving the users choices of sorting by new/old, most/least discussion, most/fewest replies, etc... might be a better option? And/or some other non-vote driven method? Of course you'll still need good moderation and a way to flag inappropriate content where a user's ability to flag is kept in check by some combination of the length of time that user has been active, his/her level of participation with the platform, and the number flags said user has received, but overall I suspect this would keep the general user's focus on having actually productive discussion instead of trying to get that dopamine hit from making a well-liked comment.

I should also say that I've been mostly pretty pleased with the quality of discussions on HN and I appreciate the good moderation and the general populace's desire to share quality information/opinions/thoughts. But I do wonder what will happen if it becomes "too" popular and if there are things that could be done to keep that focus on quality discussions even in the face of a massive influx of users.

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

#405

Post by jodrellblank »

renewiltord wrote: post #41

I like the idea of paying to downvote, but also an interesting effect of downvotes is that they skew views of a position. Having one upvote and 100 downvotes is the same as having 401 upvotes and 500 downvotes. Isn't that odd? One is a comment everyone hates and the other is a comment almost half of all people like.

> "I like the idea of paying to downvote"

This reads to me like charging people to pick up trash while they're out walking. Voting is a mini-act of trying to improve the site for others by sweeping trash comments down and out of others' way and lifting good comments up to prominence; who would pay to do that? Who would think it reasonable to expect people to pay to do it?

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

#406

Post by pwr33 »

Graffur wrote: post #282
rurp wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This matches my experience as well. HN having a reasonably high karma threshold for downvoting was a great decision that guards against a lot of common problems. I think that feature, along with the community as a whole being very mindful about protecting the forum quality, plus Dang being an excellent moderator, have greatly contributed to keeping it strong for many years.

In fact it seems like a no brainer decision. Why should a day 1 account be able to downvote content?

Because someone who created an account yesterday is no better or worse than anyone else.

I've been here for well over 10 years and this place has always been filled with complete buffoons and parasites.

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

#407

Post by rrradical »

jldl805 wrote: post #377
hooande wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you don't mind my asking, why isn't it an easy thing for you to be on here?

I can't speak for the person you are talking to but this site has much less tolerance for deviation from cultural norms - which is both a good and bad thing. Compared to even niche subreddits there is much less room for "freewheeling" (can't think of a better term for it) comments. It has costs but what for what you pay, you gain in a more serious and sober environment.

Wow, I think my experience has been different. Redditors seem to pile on a 'wrong' opinion and downvote to oblivion, whereas HN seems more evenhanded to me. I'm sure it depends on the subreddit though.

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

#408

Post by jorvi »

grawprog wrote: post #392
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 think the problem when it comes down to it is there's generally more than one kind of comment as well as more than one kind of reason someone downvotes. You've got your objective factual comment Your subjective factual comment And your opinion based comment. I'm probably missing some. These can all be combined sometimes into one comment. Then you've got your reasons for downvoting. Disagreeing Factually incorrect W…

But that would still happen in an upvote-only system. The 'good' comments would float to the top and the 'bad' ones would stay low in the threads and sub-threads.

To be honest, I feel the most damaging in the HN voting system is the greying out of comments. It often leads to bandwagoning where if a comment even goed to 0, some people just blindly ram the downvote button because someone already (visually) decided for them that that particular comment is 'bad'. No consideration required!

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

#409

Post by pwr33 »

"It’s pretty clear now that the broken windows theory applies to community sites as well. The theory is that minor forms of bad behavior encourage worse ones: that a neighborhood with lots of graffiti and broken windows becomes one where robberies occur. I was living in New York when Giuliani introduced the reforms that made the broken windows theory famous, and the transformation was miraculous. And I was a Reddit user when the opposite happened there, and the transformation was equally dramatic."

Paul Graham is such a tool.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24099192

Somebody should delete this dumpster fire of a website, perhaps a real "hacker" might take the initiative some day!

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

#410

Post by mbauman »

brudgers wrote: post #401
crazygringo wrote: post #198

It's kind of amusing that the entire premise of this article is undone by the aside: > update: Apparently it is possible to downvote comments, which I never realized. But while downvotes seem useful for comments where there's a lot more scope for false information, trolling, etc., I'm not sure what the additional value would be for posts -- they're either popular or not, and you can still flag posts that are actively…

Atwood is smart, but the social sophistication of StackOverflow mostly came from Spolsky. I don't know if they are still available, but Atwood and Spolsky had a regular phone call that went out as a podcast from the earliest days of the StackOverflow project. In terms of the social structure of Spolsky thought "How do I move the Turtle in LOGO" [1] was a good question for the site (he wrote it). Atwood thought it was…

Amusingly Discourse doesn't have downvotes. It's a great piece of software, but the way in which the meta site is run is a little strange.
Post reply on HN