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

news.ycombinator.com

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

#81

Post by dasil003 »

It's a common conceit among engineers to believe that they can be objective in all things and cleanly separate their opinions and their knowledge. We may be a little better at it than the average person, but we are all still human, even the most socially detached savant is still subject to the influence of passion and bias. Realizing this, the original question is a fantasy, it is utterly impossible because there can be no agreement on what is even considered "thoughtful".

My recommendation is to take it easy, let people be people, and stop daydreaming.

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

#83

Post by alex_c »

I don't downvote comments I disagree with. I do downvote comments that are off-topic, don't add anything constructive, or predictably rehash the same old arguments that have been used in certain online debates thousands of times over the years.

Which on the surface might look like downvoting comments I disagree with... but there's a difference.

Is it just me, or do the weekends tend to attract more meta threads?

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

#84

Post by nailer »

tspiteri wrote: post #44
alexk7 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes. People who contribute things they believe to be correct, even if incorrect, gives other people an opportunity to demonstrate the correct behavior and others still a chance to be educated.

Additionally, sometimes the original poster was in fact correct, and the responder correcting him is proven incorrect.

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

#85

Post by gojomo »

tokipin wrote: post #76

i don't see what's wrong with downvoting on disagreement. does it hurt people's feelings?

Yes, a downvote can 'sting' -- because even if the person casting it means to say "I disagree", they are sending the exact same signal as is sent when they mean "Your behavior is unacceptable". And, downvotes are a 'scarlet letter' of community disapproval, and cause comments to fade in color and sink in position. It is a status kick-in-the-groin.

And that's OK, for truly unwanted behavior.

But the right kind of disagreement is good, healthy, necessary and should be celebrated.

One option would be to have two axes of single-click vote-reaction. One is classic up-down promote/demote, for whether a comment has quality. The other would be left-right agree/disagree, a mini poll to capture sentiments.

Unless there is an easy outlet -- a click-region -- for sending a 'disagree' signal separate from the 'disapprove' downvote, it is inevitable the two will be conflated, causing angst and periodic threads like this one.

For previous discussion on this 'two-axis' concept, see:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=613112

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=214521

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

#86

Post by tspiteri »

nailer wrote: post #84
tspiteri wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes. People who contribute things they believe to be correct, even if incorrect, gives other people an opportunity to demonstrate the correct behavior and others still a chance to be educated. Additionally, sometimes the original poster was in fact correct, and the responder correcting him is proven incorrect.

In that case, the comment does add value to the conversation, whether it is correct or not, so I agree with you that in that case downvoting is wrong.

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

#87

Post by philwelch »

growt wrote: post #38
ErrantX wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was toying with suggesting this "improvement" the other day - i.e. remove comment scores. I think it makes things better; but I suspect there would be a lot of opposition.

Maybe one could make that a user setting so that everybody who likes it that way could switch points off. I think I could be more objective when I wouldn't see the exact points but just the relative order of stories and comments. Another interesting idea would be that a reply to a comment would count as +1 (or maybe +0.5) for the parent. Because I think that if a comment is interesting or controversial enough to just…

There are too many replies that correct factual errors or explain/reinforce HN social norms to assume reply == upvote. Though you could downvote and reply.

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

#88

Post by gojomo »

The biggest problem I've seen grow recently are healthy comments quickly downvoted from 1 to 0. I immediately vote them back up but I want to reach through the monitor and throttle the voter for spinning such a sensitive-to-initial-conditions process in a negative direction.

If I were the HN Sovereign, I'd consider having moderators casually review all 'first votes' on comments, especially 'first downvotes'. If a certain user is injecting a lot of 'sting' into threads with a hair-trigger down-vote, I'd put their franchise on double-secret-probation.

What is double-secret-probation, you might ask? Well, they'd still see their votes take effect, but no one else would -- at least for initial votes, maybe for others too.

Their negativity would be quarantined.

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