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Please Bring Back Our Downvotes: Society Desperately Needs It

theapeiron.co.uk

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

#161

Post by dec0dedab0de »

antattack wrote: post #119
dahart wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you have a lot more fear and assumption than experience here. In reality, crazy unfair downvote bombing is not even close to the norm here in my ~decade of experience. What makes you certain that someone with multiple accounts has downvoted you? Are you sure you weren’t just wrong and didn’t know it? I’ve been wrong in good faith and gotten fairly downvoted for it far, far more often than I’ve been unf…

Ideological issues get people to use downvote. Technical discourse is more civilized, upvotes are more likely than downvotes.

I agree, as long as you realize that vim/emacs, static/dynamic, frontend/backend, etc., are all Ideological issues, and not technical ones. :-)

...and jokes are generally not treated well either, unless it's Friday.

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

#162

Post by okareaman »

tjpnz wrote: post #110
okareaman wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mind downvotes on my comments, I just wish a downvote required a comment stating some kind of reason for it. Even a short comment "I don't like this" would be telling because it would indicate they don't have a reason other than emotion. Often I initially get a bunch of downvotes and then later enough upvotes to even it out.

>I just wish a downvote required a comment stating some kind of reason for it. Could be interesting if it were applied selectively. If a user had a higher number of downvotes to upvotes over a sustained period of time for instance.

Someone with honest contrarian views would not be hurt by this because they leave usually comments with reasons. I appreciate them as much as the up voters.

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

#164

Post by underseacables »

TchoBeer wrote: post #75
aaaronic wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvoting here on HN does seem pretty arbitrary. (Either that, or I just don't post quality comments/posts :D) I do know sites like HN attempt to identify patterns of voting like you described in order to remove abusive accounts, but I don't know how successful they are. I could see downvoting requiring a minimal amount of feedback being a possibility, like you can only downvote if you are posting a public reply as…

Would it be better if you get down voted to hell and also get swamped with throwaway comments like "that's stupid"

I think throwaway accounts should be banned, or at the very least, there should be a waiting period before you can comment. If you participate with thoughtful comments, you’ll reach 500 within a month. What bothers me is people creating these accounts on a whim just a throw out some garbage, or maybe a valid opinion, and then disappear in the night. If you had to wait a week to post it might lead to massive duplicate account creation, but I think it’s worth considering.

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

#165

Post by JulianMorrison »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #85
irjustin wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's not as bad on HN in my opinion, for a few reasons: 1. Comments cannot fall below -4 points 2. Downvoted comments only get greyed out, not hidden entirely 3. Most topics on HN are not political (though there are certainly exceptions) 4. The community here is (usually) a bit more mature than on other sites like Reddit

Surprisingly many topics are political [1], and an answer the very right-wing libertarian consensus here disagrees with will absolutely be voted all the way down.

[1] Often, the assertion "this topic is not or should not be political" is political. Because politics is how we organize society on a large scale and saying things should be exempt from that, guess what, is a political opinion.

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

#166

Post by higeorge13 »

_v7gu wrote: post #48
gus_massa wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I have been downvoted in technological threads, just expressing my past experience on docker. Should we avoid those as well?

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

#167

Post by ghostoftiber »

codetrotter wrote: post #34
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…

> someone comes along with their four accounts and downvotes every comment I got I think the Reddit server software actually detects that kind of thing now and will make those votes not count. Likewise I think they’ve also made it so that a single comment alone that downvotes get piled onto will not hurt the account of the person that wrote it that much any longer.

For stories? Yes. For comments? They don't seem to care. Also the reddit bot mob is a very real thing and there's folks who enjoy evading those sorts of attempts at control. It becomes a game unto itself.

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

#168

Post by rijoja »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #73
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…

> 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. Tangential but whenever I read something like this, and people do post them a lot, I tend to assume they're actually normal, sensitive people who have learned that not showing any sign of harm means…

The scientific process leaves no room for emotions what so ever. Errors in the scientific process could have devastating results. If you can not separate your emotional well beings from the truth go and do something where your feelings are of no consequence.

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

#169

Post by 29083011397778 »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #85
irjustin wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's not as bad on HN in my opinion, for a few reasons: 1. Comments cannot fall below -4 points 2. Downvoted comments only get greyed out, not hidden entirely 3. Most topics on HN are not political (though there are certainly exceptions) 4. The community here is (usually) a bit more mature than on other sites like Reddit

There's an inherent account age requirement on HN though, tied to the number of upvotes an account has

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

#170

Post by nickthemagicman »

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…

Down votes create cultural echo chambers and social cooling.

What down votes should be for is rudeness or site violations...but they're effectively used to blackball people with counter opinions.

There's a social cooling that goes along with anyone who has a counter opinion to the tribes narrative but doesn't want to be digitally outcast.

And eventually those with differing opinions who do speak up accumulate enough down votes and are outcast.

And over time the echo chamber continues to grow....

Edit: god bless HN echo chamber and the down votes.

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