Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#131

Post by whalabi » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 10:06 AM UTC

tompazourek wrote: post #130

whalabi wrote: post #116

I've wondered why Twitter seems far more toxic than Reddit (certain now-banned subreddits excluded) and I believe the downvote is a powerful tool used to achieve this, along with Reddit's community-style moderation, even though that can border on toxic itself at times. I wrote about it here a little while back https://unlikekinds.com/article/trolls-and-consequences-what...

I'm wondering about the same thing. To me, Reddit feels more like it emphasizes communities. While Twitter is more about the cult of personality, and not too centered around community. Also, on Twitter it's much easier to get to another social bubble by accident (just see some random tweet in the feed, and here it goes). On Reddit, you are much more likely to stay within your chosen subreddits (unless you look at the…

Yeah I thought the same thing re communities, it's a super important aspect and gives you some of the.. social geography you get in the real world. Tgat and the personal, per-community moderation.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#132

Post by IanCal » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 10:07 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #120

IanCal wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm seconding your suggestion. I also think it's mostly moderation. Through close to two decades of watching and participating in discussions on Reddit, HN, Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon, YouTube comments, some phpBB boards, website comment systems, as well as a bunch of local discussion boards in the age before social media, I've observed that: - Niche forums fare better than general ones - Voting systems don't matter…

> - Voting systems don't matter at all, including pseudo-voting like "likes" and "shares" counters

I'm a little torn on this. I can see them as useful or damaging. I quite like HNs which doesn't support the chasing of karma per comment too precisely. Not perfect, but none of the solutions are really.

> A person that's a total asshole on YouTube can also be very professional at work, and polite to their friends. A person that's communicating constructively on HN may do the opposite on Twitter. In all these cases, the enforced standards differ.

Indeed, I know I write very differently here to reddit, and differently on different subs. Just as in real life.

The timely side is I think very important, as this keeps the overall view of the place looking as you want it. On that side, I think rapid deletion is a very useful tool.

Something I liked about the casualuk approach is that there's a fast forgiveness as well. A one day ban and comment deletion is simple, obviously impactful but not actually harmful and there's no long lasting "negative" score for people to aim for (or feel like it means they become outcasts).

Moderation has its problems, and maybe there's a better approach, but it's much harder to "game" an active person with a stake in keeping a place nice.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#133

Post by whalabi » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 10:08 AM UTC

antigirl wrote: post #127

whalabi wrote: post #116

I've wondered why Twitter seems far more toxic than Reddit (certain now-banned subreddits excluded) and I believe the downvote is a powerful tool used to achieve this, along with Reddit's community-style moderation, even though that can border on toxic itself at times. I wrote about it here a little while back https://unlikekinds.com/article/trolls-and-consequences-what...

Twitter exposes the profile of the user a lot more and people have their own feeds. Reddit in comparison albeit with profiles seems anonymous all the same.

That's a good point, seems less enticing to a troll to rip into an anonymous username. Reddit's moved a bit in that direction in recent years, with full fledged profiles, user feeds, profile pics, etc.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#134

Post by tester34 » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 10:08 AM UTC

arcturus17 wrote: post #74

tester34 wrote: post #55

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

What is the state of the art nowadays?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27917179

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#135

Post by lifthrasiir » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 10:09 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #120

IanCal wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm seconding your suggestion. I also think it's mostly moderation. Through close to two decades of watching and participating in discussions on Reddit, HN, Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon, YouTube comments, some phpBB boards, website comment systems, as well as a bunch of local discussion boards in the age before social media, I've observed that: - Niche forums fare better than general ones - Voting systems don't matter…

I actually have even stronger opinion: moderation also doesn't work, but it seems pretty much the only way to slow decay. For example niche forums fare better in particular because moderation is easier with smaller forums and they generally decay anyway as the forum itself grows. And I don't think the moderation skill is learnable either; I (painfully) learned that the founder is rarely a good moderator.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#136

Post by sascha_sl » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 10:12 AM UTC

whalabi wrote: post #116

I've wondered why Twitter seems far more toxic than Reddit (certain now-banned subreddits excluded) and I believe the downvote is a powerful tool used to achieve this, along with Reddit's community-style moderation, even though that can border on toxic itself at times. I wrote about it here a little while back https://unlikekinds.com/article/trolls-and-consequences-what...

While Twitter loves to have bubbles crash into one another for engagement, reddit is far worse than you might think for minorities, mostly because their subreddits have little collective voting power.

For instance some trans friendly subreddits that's not primarily about trans people has been continuously raided for the past few months, where lots of people - exceeding the organic voting power of the subs population - downvote posts that feature trans topics in any capacity to make the posts effectively invisible. Then they started sending mass-DMs to further disincentive trans people from talking (I myself got a message from "youdontpass1488", not too hard to see the perpetrators political alignments there). Moderators have near-zero available tools to prevent this from happening, aside from going private which is not really the best option for various reasons.

While this practice is banned on reddit, coordination has just moved elsewhere.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#137

Post by Sergiu37 » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 10:13 AM UTC

whalabi wrote: post #116

I've wondered why Twitter seems far more toxic than Reddit (certain now-banned subreddits excluded) and I believe the downvote is a powerful tool used to achieve this, along with Reddit's community-style moderation, even though that can border on toxic itself at times. I wrote about it here a little while back https://unlikekinds.com/article/trolls-and-consequences-what...

Reddit is not toxic if you agree with the majority views. If not it is probably the most toxic social media. So other views people leave and so reddit remains a bubble of like minded people that don't see their toxicity. You can just look at some popular subreddits like iata i am the asshole or idiotsincar or murdered by words, justiceserved to name a few and many other where people just laugh and are being toxic towars other people. Most popular posts are also angry ones.

For a good mental health is imperative to avoid reddit, or at least just take part in tech/thinvs you love, but even there the neagtive and frustrated people will bring their issue there.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#138

Post by varjag » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 10:21 AM UTC

yreg wrote: post #76

tester34 wrote: post #55

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 suspect a pay-to-reply mechanism (even if in token virtual "currency") would improve the quality of discussion a lot. Imposing a psychologically perceived cost would dramatically reduce shitposting, memeing and trite responses.

It will also make classic botnets impossible. Malicious parties would have to procure "currency" in the system and money trail can be hunted largely automated.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#139

Post by Sergiu37 » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 10:22 AM UTC

jokoon wrote: post #61

I'm interested/curious to see how a system where you can only downvote would behave. I think users would be much more interested to only downvote, if they could. The front page would only show items that were not downvoted. Of course if would also be possible to see which posts were the most downvoted.

My guess is that will bring to the top the most uninteresting stuff that novody even cares about to downvote. Also this might look like the new section as eventually someone will downvote so the new ones will be at the top in the first phase.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#140

Post by azangru » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 10:24 AM UTC

Sergiu37 wrote: post #137

whalabi wrote: post #116

I've wondered why Twitter seems far more toxic than Reddit (certain now-banned subreddits excluded) and I believe the downvote is a powerful tool used to achieve this, along with Reddit's community-style moderation, even though that can border on toxic itself at times. I wrote about it here a little while back https://unlikekinds.com/article/trolls-and-consequences-what...

Reddit is not toxic if you agree with the majority views. If not it is probably the most toxic social media. So other views people leave and so reddit remains a bubble of like minded people that don't see their toxicity. You can just look at some popular subreddits like iata i am the asshole or idiotsincar or murdered by words, justiceserved to name a few and many other where people just laugh and are being toxic tow…

> Reddit is not toxic if you agree with the majority views.

Different subreddits will have different majorities with different views, no?

> toxicity ... toxic towars other people

What does this mean? For example, if you are sitting inside your bubble and laughing at the outsiders, who don't even come to your bubble, is there any toxicity going on?