I think "someone posted a useless (thanks, cool story bro...) comment" is applied too liberally. Downvoting can definitely discourage participation. For that reason it should be targeted towards stuff in (A). Except in the most egregious instances of (E), when people downvote they come across as being immature or petty.
Poll: I disagree with you, is it ok to downvote you?
51–60 of 63 posts
Re: Poll: I disagree with you, is it ok to downvote you?
#52Whatever the results here, I want to use this opportunity to strongly object to all of the meta-scoring-discussion that I see more and more of ... Editing your comment, or adding additional comments with things like "why the downvotes ... ?" or "not sure why I am being downvoted because ..." or "you can downvote all you want, but ..." By all means edit posts and post followups and continue the discussion, but please,…
I've been guilty of that a few times.
I would greatly appreciate it if downvoters also added their explanation if it merits it.
OTOH, I've been downvoted a few times for things that, viewed from the outside, can be seen as flamebait-ish or useless discussion.
I've also had the opposite, people that, instead of downvoting, ask "did you answer the wrong post?" (has happened) or if I misunderstood the comment I was replying to (has also happened), and I greatly appreciate that.
edit:
example of a comment where I was downvoted, and it was probably flamebait-ish
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8135011
example of me replying to a wrong post:
Re: Poll: I disagree with you, is it ok to downvote you?
#53Does B include people who are factually incorrect and easily proven wrong with a simple intuitive Google search? Eg they misrepresented a fact, not presented a dissenting opinion. To me it does, and I downvote that.
Why don't you just provide a correction?
Some comments are wrong but interesting, it's a common error or an error on a strange case. I try to vote a correction reply or write a comment explaining the error.
Some comments are extremely wrong, as "If you plant a fried potato, you get a fried potato tree." I downvote this kind of comments.
Re: Poll: I disagree with you, is it ok to downvote you?
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why downvote if it doesn't detract from the conversation? My rule of thumb is to upvote if the comment is insightful or has information I find useful. Downvote if it seems blatantly incorrect, mean, overly negative or is actively trying to make the conversation worse. Otherwise I just ignore it.
Why do you feel that something that is incorrect (even blatantly) isn't useful? I have often observed a thread where somebody ignorantly spouts something and is taught appropriately. I've learned stuff from those and left with a net positive. The original poster might never admit to being wrong, or changing his world-view, but I certainly have many times.
In this case "blatantly incorrect" meant lies with a likely ulterior motive. Off the top of my head I can't think of any case where this has been an issue on HN, but I have seen it on other forums where marketers try to spin problems with their products.
Re: Poll: I disagree with you, is it ok to downvote you?
#55A) cultures are different and such subjective argument is not enough to use down-vote. If you are some smart ass who want something without emotions, go and chat with your PC, but if you are reading public opinions, do not be surprised that they are written by humans (probably containing some emotions).
F) when someone makes something good and publishes it to be accessible by society it is normal to receive thanks, especially if it is open source project or non-commercial project aimed to make the world better. But suddenly some smart asses appears from nowhere with zero contribution, but with privilege to make other achievements invisible.
In my belief down-voting system is unfair. Especially if you are advised to shut-up when you are down-voted because it makes conversation boring... As HN does not stimulate responsible conversation, but only something like "say and shut-up if we do not like you", there are no reason for me to keep track of conversation and provide more arguments to prove that I am right.
Re: Poll: I disagree with you, is it ok to downvote you?
#56A community feels hostile when everyone down-votes the unpopular opinions and I think we should at least refrain from down-voting when we just don't agree. Think about a democracy. You can't down-vote, you always vote for something. People get "down-voted" (getting trialed and fined) when they act against the rules. What I humbly recommend is sometimes actually up-voting a controversial comment that you disagree with…
Interesting. Almost would like to see a system where you can't reply without upvoting.
Re: Poll: I disagree with you, is it ok to downvote you?
#57I'm sort of amazed that "B" has only 12 points at this moment. I am downvoted all the time based on B. Otherwise, I'd love someone to go through my comments and find how many that fall under A or G (as I'd very much want to learn to never fall under either of these categories). Unless you think, "zzzeek posted facts that are incorrect (sure), misunderstood the person he was responding to (arguable IMHO but i often ma…
You have an average comment score of 5.x, which is high. I had to go back 80 days to get to a visibly downvoted comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7733672 Which comments are downvoted for disagreement?
well haven't posted a lot lately.
My clearly annoyed comment a couple of days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8135515 started out underwater a bit, flowed up to 7 and then back down to 5, which means someone's clicking downmod. I think these downmods are fine because I wasn't entirely careful in writing that post (whiskey will do that).
I tend to think of downmods just like the catcalls you hear in the House of Commons from the opposition party. It's chaotic and rude sure but that's just human nature.
Re: Poll: I disagree with you, is it ok to downvote you?
#58Re: Poll: I disagree with you, is it ok to downvote you?
#59The missing options greatly lessen the validity of the poll, as you implicitly assume down-voting has its place.
H) Never.
I) Never; flag as inappropriate with a reason (sexism, rascism, spam - the list should be limited and must not include references to the intelligence of the poster or the post).
I'm with Voltaire.
Re: Poll: I disagree with you, is it ok to downvote you?
#60Whatever the results here, I want to use this opportunity to strongly object to all of the meta-scoring-discussion that I see more and more of ... Editing your comment, or adding additional comments with things like "why the downvotes ... ?" or "not sure why I am being downvoted because ..." or "you can downvote all you want, but ..." By all means edit posts and post followups and continue the discussion, but please,…
I've been guilty of that a few times. I would greatly appreciate it if downvoters also added their explanation if it merits it. OTOH, I've been downvoted a few times for things that, viewed from the outside, can be seen as flamebait-ish or useless discussion. I've also had the opposite, people that, instead of downvoting, ask "did you answer the wrong post?" (has happened) or if I misunderstood the comment I was repl…
Well, I now probably have an example of H) Someone was discussing downvoting
...and the downvoter didn't deign to explain his downvote (on a post explicitly asking for explanations).
Edit: and downvoted as well. I thought a "meta" discussion such as this would be the appropriate place. It seems it's not.