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Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

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Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#81

The way users might benefit is if Twitter learns what users like and dislike and curate a feed based on these preferences. At the very least one could expect them to use it for the list of who to follow. One similar strategy would be how Reddit introduced a subreddit filter feature (which was previously only available in a 3rd party extension) to get metrics on which popular but disliked subreddit to quarantine. Thes…

> ...and curate a feed based on these preferences.

I personally don't need a curated feed on twitter. Hopefully, they'll never deactivate the chronological one.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#82
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On HN the moderation is better and the community smaller (and I guess also united by at least one common interest). Another important difference I see is that the score of comments is hidden, at least to some degree. Seeing how "the community" has already judged a post is greatly influential to future votes. It also creates a bias on the way the comment is interpreted by the reader. I don't know what would be the ide…

There also is this problem I had (have?) on HN: I no longer dare try to go against downvotes and upvote downvoted comments that I think are perfectly fine. I did that quite a bit - and my voting rights where removed. When I asked by email my voting behavior was cited as trying to be controversial by upvoting already downvoted comments (I don't remember the exact words any more, it was well over a year ago or even muc…

> I did that quite a bit - and my voting rights where removed. When I asked by email my voting behavior was cited as trying to be controversial by upvoting already downvoted comments

That's disappointing. I do the same actually. Not to cause controversy but, well, because sometimes I agree and try to vote honestly.

Maybe there are malicious attempts that look the same from the server's perspective, but it's still weird.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#85

The way users might benefit is if Twitter learns what users like and dislike and curate a feed based on these preferences. At the very least one could expect them to use it for the list of who to follow. One similar strategy would be how Reddit introduced a subreddit filter feature (which was previously only available in a 3rd party extension) to get metrics on which popular but disliked subreddit to quarantine. Thes…

Excellent, more bubbling.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#86
post #52

This seems prone to trouble to me. Twitter is already very groupthink heavy, and I can only see this amplifying that problem. You see it in Reddit all the time - people don't actually read the comments, just upvote the upvoted ones and vice versa. I worry this will just make an already very narrow set of acceptable opinions even narrower.

Is this not a problem on HN? I think it is but if it's not, what makes it work here?

[deleted]

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#87

The way users might benefit is if Twitter learns what users like and dislike and curate a feed based on these preferences. At the very least one could expect them to use it for the list of who to follow. One similar strategy would be how Reddit introduced a subreddit filter feature (which was previously only available in a 3rd party extension) to get metrics on which popular but disliked subreddit to quarantine. Thes…

The chronological feed is a must-have for me, but here's a wild idea: having Home (personalised), New (chronological), Hot and a big Random thread button would be neat.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#88
post #85

The way users might benefit is if Twitter learns what users like and dislike and curate a feed based on these preferences. At the very least one could expect them to use it for the list of who to follow. One similar strategy would be how Reddit introduced a subreddit filter feature (which was previously only available in a 3rd party extension) to get metrics on which popular but disliked subreddit to quarantine. Thes…

Excellent, more bubbling.

That's my worry too, but I don't know if you can already make it worse on twitter. Reddit has the random button and easy access to two "feeds" (chronological and "personalised"), so I'd like more of that.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#89
post #57
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think up and down voting could actually help the discourse on twitter if it's implemented correctly. Currently every way to interact with a tweet drives its engagement score: likes, retweets and replies all result in more visibility for a tweet. So if you think a tweet is unproductive or wrong, you can express that in a reply, but even that is resulting in more visibility for the original tweet. This incentivizes b…

Mute works fine.

Mute is fine if you personally don't want to hear from someone. Downvote is to prevent an outsized influence of bad actors on the platform as a whole.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#90
post #76

upvote/downvote system is flawed allows to manipulate, promotes groupthink and kind of harassing people it maybe worked over decade ago or so, but it's definitely not state of art nowadays. edit. or maybe it just doesn't work for e.g news/discussions (especially about politics and other "hot" topics) meanwhile for meme sites it should be fine

I agree with the flaws you point out, but I still find reddit discussions to be of much higher value than Facebook discussions. I atribute it to the voting system. The Facebook discussions (e.g. under posts by serious media in my country) are overrun by antivaxers, xenophobes and the like. It makes it seem like they hold the opinion of almost everyone. I believe that's not the case, but most non-extremists are tired…

I'd say that it's perhaps more tied to moderation. Reddit communities vary dramatically in quality of discussion and one thing that seems to separate the highest quality from the lowest is heavy moderation. AskHistorians for example is extremely strict and has very high quality answers. Another example that's strict in a different way is CasualUK, where even vague references to politics or politicians is an immediate day ban (I was banned for making a joke that someone looked like a particular politician) and this results in a high quality "discussion" (the goal is not debate but fun friendly chats and it achieves that perfectly).

edit - evidence on the voting system not always helping is that quick, low effort posts and comments quickly rise to the top and drown out all other things. To the point where banning direct image posts so users have to click twice rather than once makes a difference in what's posted and rises.

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