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

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#391

Post by wccrawford » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 1:47 PM UTC

mariusor wrote: post #389

wccrawford wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also another kind of echo chamber, where the majority can penalize you for going against the group-think both by downvoting your posts and by providing you with fewer votes.

Yes, but in all fairness, slashdot, unlike reddit had a niche it was pursuing: "tech news". Granted there were meme posts during its heyday too (eg, micro$oft bad) but I think opposing opinions were given way more consideration than similar discussion garner on reddit (or even here, on HN) to this day.

I think that was true at one point, but later I don't think it was true. Well, at least compared to HN. I think it was always better than Reddit, but I don't expect intelligent discussion there like I do on tech news sites.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#392

Post by mariusor » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

wccrawford wrote: post #391

mariusor wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but in all fairness, slashdot, unlike reddit had a niche it was pursuing: "tech news". Granted there were meme posts during its heyday too (eg, micro$oft bad) but I think opposing opinions were given way more consideration than similar discussion garner on reddit (or even here, on HN) to this day.

I think that was true at one point, but later I don't think it was true. Well, at least compared to HN. I think it was always better than Reddit, but I don't expect intelligent discussion there like I do on tech news sites.

I was thinking of the period before the exodus to digg and reddit happened. I'm not sure about the year... before 2006-2007, I guess.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#393

Post by spiralx » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 11:05 PM UTC

baq wrote: post #147

slashdot had this covered years ago. literally decades. 1. upvotes limited to +5. 2. votes categorized: funny, informative, insightful, etc. 3. number of votes limited per time frame and user karma. 4. meta-moderation: your votes (up/down both) were subject to voting (correct/incorrect). good score == more upvotes to spend. and yet, simple trumps good. i was very happy to see parts of this implemented in steam review…

Also:

5. most active users excluded from getting votes at all

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#394

Post by spiralx » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 11:06 PM UTC

dfxm12 wrote: post #348

baq wrote: post #147

slashdot had this covered years ago. literally decades. 1. upvotes limited to +5. 2. votes categorized: funny, informative, insightful, etc. 3. number of votes limited per time frame and user karma. 4. meta-moderation: your votes (up/down both) were subject to voting (correct/incorrect). good score == more upvotes to spend. and yet, simple trumps good. i was very happy to see parts of this implemented in steam review…

You also couldn't take place in discussions if you chose to moderate, which I think is a +1 insightful way to handle things.

You could, it would just undo your moderations in that article.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#395

Post by spiralx » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 11:12 PM UTC

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #308

sanxiyn wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the design where you must give reason for downvotes. This seems to discourage mindless downvotes.

I think the slashdot moderation is best. It's borderline random when you get the chance to do it and they become "use it or lose it" mod points. That way the community has to engage, not just lurk.

It was random who got mod points, additionally the 10% most active and 25% least active users were excluded from getting mod points at all.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#396

Post by chansiky » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 11:37 PM UTC

Meta question: I just noticed, I can't downvote on HN, or at least I don't see the button. What's the social logic behind that?

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#397

Post by psyc » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 11:39 PM UTC

chansiky wrote: post #396

Meta question: I just noticed, I can't downvote on HN, or at least I don't see the button. What's the social logic behind that?

It’s a perk that you get with more karma.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#398

Post by chansiky » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 11:47 PM UTC

psyc wrote: post #397

chansiky wrote: post #396

Meta question: I just noticed, I can't downvote on HN, or at least I don't see the button. What's the social logic behind that?

It’s a perk that you get with more karma.

I see. I thought it was just disabled for all users. I can definitely can see how it keeps the rating system intact.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#399

Post by hnbad » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 10:46 AM UTC

nicbou wrote: post #376

hnbad wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people say the same about Hacker News, by the way. Arguably Reddit at least has niche communities which are small enough to avoid the problem of dogpiling and mass downvoting (except via brigading).

Hacker News is smaller, and has much tighter moderation. The conversation tends to stay civilised. I can't remember a negative interaction here. On reddit, they're the norm.

> The conversation tends to stay civilised. I can't remember a negative interaction here.

That's very much in the eye of the beholder. This isn't my first account (I abandoned my previous one a few years ago) and I chose the name for a good reason. The only good thing I can say is that my username does not seem to have had an effect on downvoting behavior.

There are plenty of communities on Reddit that are considerably smaller than HN and either have good moderation or are unknown enough to be able to do well without it. HN isn't special, or at least not any more special than the rest.

Re: Twitter tests Reddit-style upvote and downvote buttons

#400

Post by nosianu » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 9:28 AM UTC

alpaca128 wrote: post #382

useragent86 wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The latter is deliberately trying to undo other votes, distorting the system. That's begging the question: What is distortion in the system? Isn't a system with both upvoting and downvoting one designed around everyone trying to undo others' votes? What if the first 5 people to see a comment hate it and downvote it, and then the 6th person likes it and upvotes it: should the 6th person not be allowed to vote anymor…

Agreed. In the early stages "correction" of the overall score is still possible, and it does happen that the initial votes don't reflect the sentiment of the community at all. But that said maybe this system only flags a user when it's done too excessively. On average I'd say most users upvote mainly positive or neutral comments, after all downvoted comments are often downvoted for a reason and also make up the minor…

Very late reply, but for context.

I had done the upvoting of downvoted comments just a few dozen times total.

> If a user however upvotes more negative comments than positive ones that is at least unusual.

I disagree. There is no real point in upvotes IMO. Nothing visibly changes, and comment "karma" is useless (on all sites) and mostly encourages unhealthy obsessive behavior of karma chasing. Downvotes on the other hand are clearly visible and change reading and voting pattern and flow here on HN. To me, using voting privilege on wrongly downvoted comments makes a lot of sense to me.

> all downvoted comments are often downvoted for a reason

I took great care to only upvote clearly innocent and worthwhile submissions and not the haters and the useless (even if innocent) stuff. I tried acting responsibly and only after giving the value of the comment some thought.