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

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

#101

Post by GHFigs » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 7:18 PM UTC

As much as I agree that voting should be used to indicate value to the discussion and not agreement with one's own opinion, I think it is a hopeless cause. It requires that participants curtail their instincts for the sake of the greater good, an unlikely prospect in the best of circumstances, much less in a community of semi-anonymous strangers.

I think it better to simply suggest that people not take scores so damn seriously. To stop interpreting them as a measure of thoughtfulness or truthfulness and start thinking of them as just a reflection of people's attention.

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

#102

Post by bestes » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 7:26 PM UTC

nopassrecover wrote: post #40

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…

I kind of see myself as the balancer. I tend to actually read a downvoted comment to see if it was worthy (and vote it up) or see a highly upvoted comment and possibly vote it down if it's just getting upvoted because it puts forward a popular view (e.g. Microsoft is evil) rather than something of value.

If downvotes are used for disagreement, then I have to read them in order to know if they are relevant. If downvotes are saved only for irrelevant, one-liners, me-too's, etc., then I can safely ignore them.

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

#103

Post by frossie » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 7:47 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #17

ghiotion wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll second this with one minor caveat. They're not necessarily "downmodding offenders" until proven as such by the data you're requesting. They're just the top 50 downvoters.

That data's not meaningful without also considering upvotes - they could just be prolific modders.

I too am curious to see the downmod/upmode ratio (anonymously of course). I think mine is probably 10-20 upmods to 1 downmods, and I mod sparsely (maybe 1 comment in 20? depends on the thread). I downmod "noise", not signal I disagree with.

While we're geeking out, I'd be more interested in some kind of karma/comment metric than absolute karma.

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

#104

Post by andreyf » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 7:50 PM UTC

alain94040 wrote: post #98

andreyf wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Good point. I'd also note, however, that as hackers, we should attempt to be as precise as possible in our discussions.

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

#105

Post by narag » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 8:01 PM UTC

andreyf wrote: post #25

plinkplonk wrote: post #3

It would be nice if you linked to the actual comments that were down voted instead of to article pages with dozens of comments, where, presumably, the reader has to guess which comment you were referring to.

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…

Seeing the first link, I find this: "Although it may be enticing to spend a few years with a slick point and click IDE such as VisualStudio and pretend you are programming..."

Is that a thoughtful comment? I don't think so. I think that this kind of comment is what groupthink is really made of.

People thinks that the audience of the site is mostly anti-microsoft and happily insults "the others", hoping that this kind of remark will be rewarded.

Heck! If it turns out that enough people dislike that behaviour and downvote, you can still make a story asking for a revision. It seems to have worked, BTW.

OK, it might not be the case for all the comments you meant, but there are many and the general tone of them really didn't invite to more detailed read.

IOW: if you have something interesting to say, try to write respectfully and to the point. It's posible to say you don't like certain IDE without saying their users "pretend" to be programming.

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

#106

Post by gehant » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 9:10 PM UTC

As mentioned in many other comments - there is no good way for a commenting/voting system to determine a user's motivations for voting (in either direction).

...But there are subtle ways to provide incentives for user voting behavior.

For instance, why not attach greater risk/reward to voting?

Incomplete ideas that come to mind: 1)scarcity - finite votes force greater selectivity in voting 2)vote transparency - anonymity permits nastier activity 3)user transparency - highlight ornery vs constructive users

As for doing away with downvotes: Zero is an artificial floor that would simply bundle mediocre comments with comments that are off-topic/spam/in poor taste etc.

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

#107

Post by blasdel » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 9:10 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #55

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...

Comments that are factually wrong should go to 0 and no lower ! Below 0 is only for spam and things like "Me too".

I disagree -- someone else could come along and upvote it again.

Since HN reports the final number, not +/-, information is lost.

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

#108

Post by helloworld » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 9:30 PM UTC

N.B. The Hacker News Guidelines:

Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#109

Post by Create » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 9:36 PM UTC

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…

MJF: Hemminger is claiming Microsoft put the LIC code under the GPL because it was in violation of the GPL. Is this true? Did you have to suggest to (Microsoft Platform Strategy Chief Sam) Ramji & Co. that they were in violation in order to get them to agree to release the code under GPLv2?

GKH: I didn’t have to “suggest” anything, I only had to merely point out the obviousness of the situation :)

MJF: If this isn’t accurate, could you let me know how to interpret (Hemminger’s) comments on his blog.

GKH: No, that sounds accurate.

[...]

Ramji didn’t come right out and deny the GPL violations claim, but I guess that’s as much as we’re going to get.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=3433

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

#110

Post by Semiapies » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 9:39 PM UTC

Honestly?

I downvote comments I agree with, if they look upvoted out of proportion to their value. I also upvote things I disagree with if they've been downvoted unreasonably low. I don't think a stance on an issue that's plausible and civilly stated needs to go below 1, for instance.

Different people have different approaches; if we could get everyone to vote based on one standard, we wouldn't need a karma system in the first place.