Dear YC: Please stop downvoting thoughtful comments you disagree with. • Hacker News Board

Re: Dear YC: Please stop downvoting thoughtful comments you disagree with.

#41

Post by ptn » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 2:25 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #24

ptn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagreed. If downvoting meant "you are wrong", then it would be kinda like a black-hole if it weren't accompained by a reply, because the obvious follow-up question "why is that wrong?" would go un-answered, and thus nobody learns. Since learning is what we are here for, please correct "factually wrong" posts with a reply, not with a downvote. It seems more correct to downvote those posts or replies that do not foll…

It is not an either/or - you can both vote and reply. Thoughtfulness has little correlation to the quality of a comment. A one-liner from a subject matter expert is worth more than an entire paragraph of mere hearsay.

If you replied with a correction, it's implicit that you disagree, and then downvotes would be redundant.

I think one liners, unless they are reminders of something that's universally obvious, are worse than no comment at all, because they can't contain much information.

Re: Dear YC: Please stop downvoting thoughtful comments you disagree with.

#42

Post by fauigerzigerk » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 2:26 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #5

Thoughtful comments that are factually wrong should be downvoted. Seriously. If your code doesn't compile, the compiler doesn't care how much effort it took you to write it...

People are not compilers. The difference is that people are able write and explain their point of view. If you think that something is factually wrong, I'd be interested to hear what is right. How do you explain that by downvoting?

Voting is good for filtering large amounts of content. It's useless, even offensive, to make a point that way.

Re: Dear YC: Please stop downvoting thoughtful comments you disagree with.

#43

Post by shiranaihito » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 2:29 PM UTC

froo wrote: post #13

As someone who has received a string of downvoted commented recently (admittedly they were warranted given the nature of some of them) I really don't see the problem. Someone disagrees with you and does the initial downvoting, then groupthink kicks in and your score hits the floor. It's a simple fact of life in social media sites (it occurs on many sites with differing communities), this is why PG put in the -8 limit…

Groupthink is a silly thing. Besides, if your comment gets downvoted, it becomes gray and much harder to read.

It's unfortunate if thoughtful comments get "hidden" by downvotes.

Re: Dear YC: Please stop downvoting thoughtful comments you disagree with.

#44

Post by tspiteri » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 2:33 PM UTC

alexk7 wrote: post #19

gaius wrote: post #5

Thoughtful comments that are factually wrong should be downvoted. Seriously. If your code doesn't compile, the compiler doesn't care how much effort it took you to write it...

I disagree. Just adding a comment to explain exactly what is factually wrong is a much better way to continue the conversation. Downvotes should be reserved for vulgar, rude, or off-topic comments.

Does something which is factually wrong improve the quality of the conversation? I think that downvotes should be used to push down comments that reduce the quality of the conversation even if they are not vulgar, rude, or off-topic.

Re: Dear YC: Please stop downvoting thoughtful comments you disagree with.

#45

Post by jerf » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 2:34 PM UTC

ptn wrote: post #21

gaius wrote: post #5

Thoughtful comments that are factually wrong should be downvoted. Seriously. If your code doesn't compile, the compiler doesn't care how much effort it took you to write it...

Disagreed. If downvoting meant "you are wrong", then it would be kinda like a black-hole if it weren't accompained by a reply, because the obvious follow-up question "why is that wrong?" would go un-answered, and thus nobody learns. Since learning is what we are here for, please correct "factually wrong" posts with a reply, not with a downvote. It seems more correct to downvote those posts or replies that do not foll…

'If downvoting meant "you are wrong", then it would be kinda like a black-hole if it weren't accompained by a reply, because the obvious follow-up question "why is that wrong?" would go un-answered, and thus nobody learns.'

On Reddit, since they added in the "suppress entire thread once the parent goes below -4", yes. On HN, which never suppresses the thread, no. I for one occasionally check even the -8 posts, though usually if you make it to -8 it's for a reason. I've "rescued" a few -3s with replies before.

Re: Dear YC: Please stop downvoting thoughtful comments you disagree with.

#46

Post by bendotc » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 2:34 PM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #8

gaius wrote: post #5

Thoughtful comments that are factually wrong should be downvoted. Seriously. If your code doesn't compile, the compiler doesn't care how much effort it took you to write it...

"Thoughtful comments that are factually wrong should be downvoted." Maybe. Maybe not. But one thing's for sure. It you think something is "factually wrong", your reply provides much more feedback than a vote. I'd like to think that judgment based upon data is what separates hackers from posers. Let's see that data please.

Let me pose a hypothetical: I'm reading HN while I'm waiting for a particularly long compile or backup or whatever. I've got about 5 minutes and about 4 minutes in, I find a comment that honestly and eloquently makes a claim based on the perceived fact that the world is flat. This comment is highly rated. Should I:

1) Withhold my down-vote because I don't have time to explain it?

2) Withhold my down-vote unless someone else has taken the time to explain it?

3) Down-vote and hope someone else explains it or at least hope that this helps other comments percolate to the top?

I honestly think 3 is the best option and I can see the point in 2, though I think it's withholding signal from the system.

Related question: is it relevant what the comment's score was? If it was -7, should I make it -8? If it was +200, does it decrease the burden to comment?

Re: Dear YC: Please stop downvoting thoughtful comments you disagree with.

#47

Post by spkthed » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 2:38 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #37

I have noticed this effect as well. Many of my comments fluctuate massively; up to +10, down to -8, back to 2, down to -5, ... I think this basically means that we are a few months away from being Reddit. Pretty soon, any comment containing $HILARIOUS_MEME will be upmodded regardless of its applicability or actual humor value. (We are already Reddit with respect to downmods; say something bad about the iPhone or some…

Unfortunately that's something of the lifecycle of online communities. Once they reach a critical mass people that probably shouldn't belong start congregating, sooner or later there seems to be a tipping point where things start racing down to the LCD of humor and insight. People start leaving and form another community.

HackerNews is surprising for the length of time it's managed to exist without turning into that. I have noticed that the quality of submissions has decreased over the past year.

Re: Dear YC: Please stop downvoting thoughtful comments you disagree with.

#48

Post by Confusion » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 2:38 PM UTC

swoodtke wrote: post #12

gaius wrote: post #5

Thoughtful comments that are factually wrong should be downvoted. Seriously. If your code doesn't compile, the compiler doesn't care how much effort it took you to write it...

To continue with your analogy, I would assume most people would be very irritated with a compiler which only reported that you made an error but didn't give you any context into where the error occurred. Most compilers make a large effort to give you good error messages with file names and line numbers so you can correct your mistake. Downvoting is like reporting an error with no context: not very useful in determini…

Too many people in these discussions treat the issue as a false dichotomy. They fail to take two things into account:

1) Downvoting and responding aren't mutually exclusive.

2) Downvoting and the presence of comment that already states the exact reason for the downvote aren't mutually exclusive. You downvote one post and upvote the comment that explains the downvote.

You really wouldn't want everyone that downvotes a post to repeat the same reason over and over again.

Re: Dear YC: Please stop downvoting thoughtful comments you disagree with.

#49

Post by delano » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 2:45 PM UTC

bendotc wrote: post #46

edw519 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Thoughtful comments that are factually wrong should be downvoted." Maybe. Maybe not. But one thing's for sure. It you think something is "factually wrong", your reply provides much more feedback than a vote. I'd like to think that judgment based upon data is what separates hackers from posers. Let's see that data please.

Let me pose a hypothetical: I'm reading HN while I'm waiting for a particularly long compile or backup or whatever. I've got about 5 minutes and about 4 minutes in, I find a comment that honestly and eloquently makes a claim based on the perceived fact that the world is flat. This comment is highly rated. Should I: 1) Withhold my down-vote because I don't have time to explain it? 2) Withhold my down-vote unless someo…

A comment like that requires a reply. If you don't have the time, that's okay b/c someone probably will (but you could check back later to make sure someone has).

Don't punish (downvote) someone for earnestly taking part in the conversation. Other people probably have similar beliefs so this person did everyone a service by bringing the question out into the open so it can be discussed.

Votes encourage discussion, not correctness.

Re: Dear YC: Please stop downvoting thoughtful comments you disagree with.

#50

Post by mkyc » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 2:46 PM UTC

This is because many people here still vote by agreement, rather than for comments that are interesting, insightful, contradictory, terse, and so on. This happens on a much larger scale with lower-rated comments. I once saw the word "no" with a score of 50~, which made up for the contributor's running streak of -5~. It wasn't that their contribution quality became better, it was that their comment hit that major "upvote when you agree" fault in our system. It reduces our quality. Seeing even a poorly-composed brute force attack on the ideas in the article is what I come to the comments for, because even reckless disagreement is often a gold mine of those little bits of information that you didn't take into consideration, but should have. (I've said all this before, and it should be repeated.)

Vote for what you think others should see, not for what you agree with.