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

Please Bring Back Our Downvotes: Society Desperately Needs It

theapeiron.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 553 posts

Re: Please Bring Back Our Downvotes: Society Desperately Needs It

#41

Post by CharlesW »

crazy_horse wrote: post #21

I've been in academia for awhile, I'm used to getting serious criticism. I'm a man, my whole life I've been told to toughen up. There's really almost nothing you can say to me that is going to hurt me. I really mean it. But downvotes? I pretty much won't post on HN or Reddit because of them (and the culture associated with it). I've got no problem being wrong, but when I spend a significant amount of time trying to r…

> If downvotes don't matter…

They clearly do, to you. I understand that upvotes-only systems are more compatible with your ego, but if I were to downvote this it would be because you don't have a persuasive argument for why an upvotes-only feedback system (which can also be easily gamed) is any better than one which supports both.

Re: Please Bring Back Our Downvotes: Society Desperately Needs It

#42

Post by merpnderp »

crazy_horse wrote: post #21

I've been in academia for awhile, I'm used to getting serious criticism. I'm a man, my whole life I've been told to toughen up. There's really almost nothing you can say to me that is going to hurt me. I really mean it. But downvotes? I pretty much won't post on HN or Reddit because of them (and the culture associated with it). I've got no problem being wrong, but when I spend a significant amount of time trying to r…

A while back I posted that according to my local state utility, installed wind power cost per year was 4 times the latest price of installed nat-gas per year, both for the newest installations. And from that I concluded nuclear power was the only viable alternative to CO2 producing energy.

Now this is the highest heresy in our new world religion, yet I only lost a single vote. Granted I didn't get any useful feedback on why I was wrong, likely because that would have involved 2 minutes of googling and some basic math, and it's just easier to believe what you want and click downvote. But Hacker News is still way better than anyplace else for serious discussions.

Re: Please Bring Back Our Downvotes: Society Desperately Needs It

#43

Post by rootusrootus »

irjustin wrote: post #16
drstewart wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, my experience has been that any downvote system will turn an audience that's divided 51-49 to one that's partitioned 51-0 in very short order. If anything, I've come to the conclusion that downvoting should be completely removed from most online platforms.

What's happening in Hnews then? Is it bad?

I'm sure it happens here, too. I know that if I start getting voted into oblivion, I walk away for a while. Clearly the community disagreed with my thoughts and it's not worth it to continue to engage.

Ironically, it doesn't affect me at all on Reddit. I have such low expectations for the platform that I don't even notice my own karma score nor do I bother to look at posts of mine to see how they're being received. HN makes your score much more prominent so it's easy to see it moving and you know immediately whether you've said something controversial somewhere.

Re: Please Bring Back Our Downvotes: Society Desperately Needs It

#45

Post by jkingsbery »

I think it's worth distinguishing between "I disagree with this comment" and "This comment is not well written: it is superficial, makes extraordinary claims without backup, or is illogical." My one problem with downvotes is it's hard to know which is meant.

Re: Please Bring Back Our Downvotes: Society Desperately Needs It

#46

Post by celeritascelery »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #10
Angostura wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dislike is more emotionally loaded. It's also ambiguous - do you dislike the comment, or do you dislike the commenter ? You can't "disagree the commenter"

What if the "New post" form required users to choose between "Like/Dislike" or "Other people need to see this/Other people don't need to see this" for their posts' rating? That way it separates the content's "likeability" from people's desire to spread it. I'm thinking of things like Tiananmen Square protest aftermath photos: people don't want to "like" it, but I'm sure they'd agree that people need to see them.

I feel like “other people should not see this” is already the function of a downvote. Problem is, it is used for two different kinds of content; spam/trolling and “things I have a negative ideological reaction to”. And no person wants to admit it’s the second one when they are downvoting.

Re: Please Bring Back Our Downvotes: Society Desperately Needs It

#48

Post by _v7gu »

gus_massa wrote: post #32
crazy_horse wrote: post #21

I've been in academia for awhile, I'm used to getting serious criticism. I'm a man, my whole life I've been told to toughen up. There's really almost nothing you can say to me that is going to hurt me. I really mean it. But downvotes? I pretty much won't post on HN or Reddit because of them (and the culture associated with it). I've got no problem being wrong, but when I spend a significant amount of time trying to r…

> then someone comes along with their four accounts and downvotes every comment I got In HN you can send an email to the mods so they can take a look. Also the site may detect it automatically (the details are unclear, it's part of the secret sauce). > because I'm not sufficiently ideological Avoid political threads. Everyone is talking pass each other, and you will not convince anyone. Upvote grey comments if they a…

> Avoid political threads.

Coupled with the new catchphrase "everything is political", this is quite impossible to do.

Re: Please Bring Back Our Downvotes: Society Desperately Needs It

#49

Post by _y5hn »

crazy_horse wrote: post #21

I've been in academia for awhile, I'm used to getting serious criticism. I'm a man, my whole life I've been told to toughen up. There's really almost nothing you can say to me that is going to hurt me. I really mean it. But downvotes? I pretty much won't post on HN or Reddit because of them (and the culture associated with it). I've got no problem being wrong, but when I spend a significant amount of time trying to r…

It's a good feedback system. Just because I and you don't get it, doesn't mean someone was indifferent to the post. It's meant to filter out discussions that are uninteresting. Just got to deal with if one isn't that interesting. Adding posts on top of that would be counterproductive.

I often raise somewhat controversial opinion and topics. Very rarely do I see clusters of downvotes, and I'm not surprised people are against my own ideas. Otherwise they would be common! It also mirrors society outside academia. It happens that later upvotes changes the score significantly. Such is it with all change.

Without some skin in the game, it's all spam and trolling otherwise. What might look strange in a mod system, might under analysis turn out to be well designed.

For all forums there is an adaption phase, before getting what people expect from posts.

Re: Please Bring Back Our Downvotes: Society Desperately Needs It

#50

Post by MMS21 »

blacktriangle wrote: post #36
crazy_horse wrote: post #21

I've been in academia for awhile, I'm used to getting serious criticism. I'm a man, my whole life I've been told to toughen up. There's really almost nothing you can say to me that is going to hurt me. I really mean it. But downvotes? I pretty much won't post on HN or Reddit because of them (and the culture associated with it). I've got no problem being wrong, but when I spend a significant amount of time trying to r…

This really is an interesting problem, and I'm not sure if there's an answer. Sometimes I think the whole idea of HN/Reddit type sites is just doomed to ultimate failure. Dunbar's number is every bit as real in a digital space as it is in a physical space. I wonder if somebody built a social media site that was totally built around small communities. So instead of a global channel, your primary feed would come from y…

> I wonder if somebody built a social media site that was totally built around small communities.

joinmastodon.org may interest you

Post reply on HN