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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

#171

Post by bloniac »

The most toxic device on the internet is the downvote.

It’s nothing more that a “criticize” button, or perhaps “attack”, “belittle”, “devalue”.

Downvotes make people feel hurt belittled and attacked.

Nothing wrong with upvoting - that’s positive.

Downvoting destroys all good will.

And of course so clever and funny here in HN this comment gets downvoted, which proves my point. The downvote is the tool of the drive by vandal. It allows people to behave like a dickhead anonymously and at no cost.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#172

Post by ChrisRR »

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 think it's also that twitter's UI isn't designed for discussion, it's designed for shouting your opinion into the void.

So I think this empowers people to voice their shitty opinion without consequence.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#173

Post by yreg »

paganel wrote: post #114
yreg wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 agree with the flaws you point out, but I still find reddit discussions to be of much higher value It highly depends on the sub-reddits. Go to highly frequented and news-oriented subs like /r/worldnews or /r/soccer and you'll see the group-think comments upvoted the most. I agree though, on more specialised and less trafficked subs the comments with the highest number of points tend to have the most value, too.

Yes, /r/worldnews, /r/politics or even /r/europe are flawed with the group-think. Still, I find this flaw to pale in comparison to what I see in (central-european, but also foreign) Facebook threads, where the top comments are often racist, mysoginist (or recently, attacks on vaccinated people).

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#174

Post by cryptica »

bloniac wrote: post #171

The most toxic device on the internet is the downvote. It’s nothing more that a “criticize” button, or perhaps “attack”, “belittle”, “devalue”. Downvotes make people feel hurt belittled and attacked. Nothing wrong with upvoting - that’s positive. Downvoting destroys all good will. And of course so clever and funny here in HN this comment gets downvoted, which proves my point. The downvote is the tool of the drive by…

I agree; it's a tool for censorship. Also, upvote is a tool for propaganda.

If implemented honestly, downvote (and upvote) would be fine, but it's not gonna happen. The downvote functionality will be an excuse to censor content. At the end of the day, it's always about financial interests.

Views which promote the interests of the financial elite and wealth centralization are upvoted, views which promote decentralization or work against the interests of financial elites are downvoted.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#175

Post by mbesto »

nosianu wrote: post #70
alpaca128 wrote: post #59

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…

> upvote downvoted comments that I think are perfectly fine

I can't speak for what you are specifically upvoting that gets so many downvotes, BUT it's entirely plausible that what you think is fine is against the guidelines, and hence an interpretation for "being controversial".

Good example (that you may or may have not done, again, I don't know):

   Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but please don't create accounts routinely. HN is a community—users should have an identity that others can relate to.
Let's say you see several anonymous "green" posts that get downvoted into oblivion but find those posts beneficial to the discussion (which is very plausible btw). Well, as per the guidelines, just creating these anonymous users is a big no-no. Hence, I would deem someone who continually upvoted those as trying to spark controversy - even though their upvotes were probably very innocent.

I've been on HN for a very long time - it's hard to follow the guidelines btw.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#176

Post by hobo_mark »

tazjin wrote: post #95
rpastuszak wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Twitter's current "chronological" feed is only chronological in that the posts that appear in it are ordered by creation date, but it doesn't include all posts from the people you follow. This was one of the reasons why I finally stopped using Twitter.

You can make a clean chronological feed quite easily with the API (the API does not include sponsored content, suggested topics or suggested likes and replies, but I want none of that anyway), this is how I have consumed twitter for years. I have filters on top of it, but those are decided my me and not their algorithms.

Have been thinking about polishing and releasing the service, but I'm not sure it is a convenience people would actually pay for?

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#177

Post by machinehermiter »

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 just don't understand why people are so terrified of opinions they don't agree with.

I am just so glad I am old enough to have been exposed to a wide variety of different opinions and ideas before this crack down on such.

Being exposed to bullshit ultimately hones your bullshit detector.

If you grow up on twitter it just seems to me you will be easy to fool. Like a person who lives in a bubble afraid of germs so their immune system is nothing.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#178

Post by allsystemsgo »

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 absolutely toxic.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#179

Post by 7ewis »

TheFreim wrote: post #145
azangru wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> Different subreddits will have different majorities with different views, no? Different subreddits do have different majority views, yes, but the largest subreddits all pretty much have the same ones.

I've been on Reddit for over 10 years now and have to agree. Generally all the larger subreddits are fairly left.

There have been some hard right subs, but most of the larger ones are banned now.

I find a lot of the mods of large subs are quite power hungry too, for example r/soccer. If someone breaks some news, linking good sources, correct post format etc. mods will regularly take the post down and repost it themselves or just leave their own posts up so they get the karma for it.

When I first joined that kind of thing bothered me, and I enjoyed getting internet points and actively tried to get karma. Now if I think something is funny or relevant I'll post it, but generally avoid big subs and stick to smaller niche ones about a certain topic, like a phone, programming language, football club, watch brand, cryptocurrency etc.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#180

Post by tazjin »

hobo_mark wrote: post #176
tazjin wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter's current "chronological" feed is only chronological in that the posts that appear in it are ordered by creation date, but it doesn't include all posts from the people you follow. This was one of the reasons why I finally stopped using Twitter.

You can make a clean chronological feed quite easily with the API (the API does not include sponsored content, suggested topics or suggested likes and replies, but I want none of that anyway), this is how I have consumed twitter for years. I have filters on top of it, but those are decided my me and not their algorithms. Have been thinking about polishing and releasing the service, but I'm not sure it is a convenienc…

> Have been thinking about polishing and releasing the service, but I'm not sure it is a convenience people would actually pay for?

You'd get shut down by Twitter as soon as it gains any traction, probably not a good idea.

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