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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.

#91

Post by indiejade »

phugoid wrote: post #77
indiejade wrote: post #14

It would be very interesting to see a list of the top 50 or so downmodding offenders next to a list of their "karma score" (or whatever it's called here). Even anonymous statistics would be interesting. Some people are just mean because they can be.

It would likewise be interesting to hear what are your thoughts about anonymity and freedom in general. Should we publicize a list of people who voted for the Canadian Lobster Party, because they obviously did it out of spite and should be punished for their lack of patriotism? Or do the benefits of anonymous voting (or modding, in this instance) outweigh the costs of people who don't take the rules seriously? There'…

It would likewise be interesting to hear what are your thoughts about anonymity and freedom in general.

Should we publicize a list of people who voted for the Canadian Lobster Party

Hey, if the numbers were interesting, why not? I'm INTP; I love looking for patterns in things, especially numbers. Social media is almost like poker in that it has a psychology issue.

But that said, I don't really downmod people very often (inadvertently sometimes, since the up and downmod arrows are so close together). My upmod/downmod ratio is probably something like 79 to 1. I'm curious about others'.

Yeah, sometimes certain people irk me, but usually do I respond to them before downmodding. And I usually attempt to befriend them after an apology, or at least an attempt for a truce on a subject we might disagree about. But some people are just vindictive, or extreme cynics.

As a result of this, I have a lot of one or two-point comments. This doesn't bother me; I'm not here to karma whore. I like the articles and the discussions, and tend to lurk most of the time anyway, posting only in spurts.

P.S. Why did you say that you're "attempting to be downmodded"?

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

#92

Post by scott_s »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #74
scott_s wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of karma on HN is to promote civil discussion, not to show agreement or disagreement. Hence, downmodding comments that you disagree with, yet are still valid, runs counter to the system's intended use.

Aye but purpose ain't always what implementation becomes, people game systems. So the utopian ideal is civil discussion but the reality of it is whatever people decide and you can't control the people.

This is true, which is why it's worthwhile discussion what the karma system here is supposed to be. If you deliberately don't use it that way, then I find that sad because I like PG's goal. As he explicitly states, this site is partially an experiment. I hope it's not a negative result.

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

#93

Post by scott_s »

mhb wrote: post #75
scott_s wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of karma on HN is to promote civil discussion, not to show agreement or disagreement. Hence, downmodding comments that you disagree with, yet are still valid, runs counter to the system's intended use.

Maybe that's not the purpose of karma on HN. Maybe the purpose is to assist its users in making judgments about various issues. If a bunch of smart people read a thoughtful comment and indicate their agreement or disagreement via voting, why isn't that useful to someone when forming their own opinion? As an analogy, consider the issue of global warming. Very few people can invest the time to decide the issue based on…

I use the moderation system here as an asymmetric control: if I agree/like something, I upvote it. I don't downvote if I disagree/dislike something. I only downvote when I think something is not a part of legitimate discussion.

If I encounter a 0 or -1 post that I think is legit, I will upvote it.

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

#95

Post by phugoid »

indiejade wrote: post #91
phugoid wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would likewise be interesting to hear what are your thoughts about anonymity and freedom in general. Should we publicize a list of people who voted for the Canadian Lobster Party, because they obviously did it out of spite and should be punished for their lack of patriotism? Or do the benefits of anonymous voting (or modding, in this instance) outweigh the costs of people who don't take the rules seriously? There'…

It would likewise be interesting to hear what are your thoughts about anonymity and freedom in general. Should we publicize a list of people who voted for the Canadian Lobster Party Hey, if the numbers were interesting, why not? I'm INTP; I love looking for patterns in things, especially numbers. Social media is almost like poker in that it has a psychology issue. But that said, I don't really downmod people very oft…

Fair enough. I agree the numbers could be interesting. But it's quite different if you want to see users' names.

I grow weary of HN's Singaporean (overly sanitized) approach to geek discussion. Geeks suffer enough from intellectual narcissism without trying to constitutionalize it. Thankfully there's enough brain candy on the site to compensate.

And people, let's go light on the hacker this and hacker that. We all get it. We're all keen to learn and explore. But... was Michael Jackson a hacker? Geebus. Labels are overrated.

God Bless the USA, but there's something distinctly American about coming up with a subtly differentiated product and then hyping it as the total opposite of what came just before it. Yeah, I mean HN / Reddit / Slashdot.

P.S.: I made the remark about being downmodded because I assumed my gentle admonishment would be unpopular, plus I noticed that almost without fail it happens when people quote the Bible.

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

#97

Post by billclerico »

A friend of mine is doing his phd research on online discussion to solve this exact problem. Digg, HN & other up/down voting sites struggle to express the viewpoint of the minority. He is working on algorithms that basically let you vote on one side of an issue.

Take for instance a political debate, where Digg and many other community sites lean to the left. Once you have expressed yourself as a "leftist" on a thread, it removes your downvotes from "rightist" comments. This gives the minority a voice, resulting in pluralism as opposed to "winner takes all".

An interesting approach to a common problem.

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

#98

Post by alain94040 »

andreyf wrote: post #30
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...

Sure, here's one that's popular, but factually incorrect (+5), with my request for correction at -1 at one point: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=720644

I read that example. It's factually incorrect if you take the comment literally, but if you understand the underlying point that the author was trying to make, it is a legitimate addition to the conversation.

This goes to show pretty clearly that someone's facts are someone else's opinion. How much of a nitpicker do you want everyone to be here?

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

#99

Post by alain94040 »

psranga wrote: post #72
andreyf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought there were too many comments to link to: Create's and bitdiddle's responses here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=720924 This response: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=720909 Is identical to this one: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=720766 My comments in this entire conversation, also: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=720569 (at one point, each of mine was <0, now upvoted out of nagativity, t…

Wrt create and bitdiddle, downvote seems like the appropriate response. It appears that create is factually wrong, and bitdiddle was saying something irrelevant about stock price. Wrt your comments on the 1984-Amazon-copyrights thing, I think you have something there. HN has too many people who think copyright laws are bad. Many here even seem to think that the GPL is bad (see comments on Zed's GPL rant). And many of…

Got to say I love the quote "no light generated here, only heat". Did you just make that up? It's a great quote for discussion groups.

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

#100

Post by indiejade »

phugoid wrote: post #95
indiejade wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would likewise be interesting to hear what are your thoughts about anonymity and freedom in general. Should we publicize a list of people who voted for the Canadian Lobster Party Hey, if the numbers were interesting, why not? I'm INTP; I love looking for patterns in things, especially numbers. Social media is almost like poker in that it has a psychology issue. But that said, I don't really downmod people very oft…

Fair enough. I agree the numbers could be interesting. But it's quite different if you want to see users' names. I grow weary of HN's Singaporean (overly sanitized) approach to geek discussion. Geeks suffer enough from intellectual narcissism without trying to constitutionalize it. Thankfully there's enough brain candy on the site to compensate. And people, let's go light on the hacker this and hacker that. We all ge…

Fair enough. I agree the numbers could be interesting. But it's quite different if you want to see users' names.

Well, a name is just a variable. If that variable can be correlated to a group status of another value within a social network, it can reveal patterns about social dynamics and even things about viral distribution of certain prominent ideas / memes / buzz-worthy topics.

It is interesting how, for example, the Google zeitgeist works, or the "trending topics" on Twitter. There are big pipes and there are small pipes, but in the oligopoly of mainstream media, it is only a select few who control the flow of data.

P.S. By "mainstream media," I mean the conglomerates who control the major networks of NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, and the other free airwaves that don't require a cable subscription payment every month.

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