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Ask HN: Why downvote? I honestly do not get it.

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Re: Ask HN: Why downvote? I honestly do not get it.

#91

Post by chrischen »

Semiapies wrote: post #81
chrischen wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I say threatening I mean with the intent to discourage . so when you down vote someone you disagree with you essentially discourage them from voicing their opinion. Why? Because when I'm downvoted I'm being punished. I don't want to be punished, so I either leave the community and decrease the variation in opinions or refrain from voicing it again. Is that what we want to allow here, or anywhere? We ignore the k…

Discouragement is not punishment. "We ignore the kkk." Living in a state that actually occasionally has KKK rallies, "we" sure as Hell don't ignore them. We surround them with counter-protesters whenever they march in their sheets - and outnumber them by many multiples. We look at people ranting on about those dirty, criminal n---s and how America used to be white and pure and call them stupid fucking racists. No, we…

Down voting is an official active punishment that is meant to discourage. Down voting is a form of punishment. Ignoring is not a form of punishment. It's passive.

What you describe may be mistaken as an active form of punishment, but you're essentially up voting the non racists, not down voting the racists. You aren't punishing the racists for their behavior so much as you are showing support for the other side.

You rally more anti-racists, but they still have the right to do what they were doing, and even up the numbers on their side too.

That is what I would like to see here. I want to see people pushing support to what they believe, not punishing those that disagree. So let's say there is a hypothetical racial argument here. One guy is racist, the other guy is not. Your example is analogous to everyone up voting the non racist as a form of protest.

Re: Ask HN: Why downvote? I honestly do not get it.

#92

Post by rokhayakebe »

jrockway wrote: post #7

Ask the submitter: Why don't you get a blog? Edit: OK, I will answer the question. People downmod to get people to convince themselves to go away. Imagine I don't like your viewpoint, and you place value on imaginary points I can take from you. I take those points, you get upset, and you stop posting stuff I disagree with. That's all there is to it; reinforcing groupthink. Similarly upmods encourage people to keep su…

So, pretty much you force people to make comments you will by taking away points.

"reinforcing groupthink"

Do you speak for one group when on HN or do you speak for yourself? If you speak for a group could you please detail which group that is and at which point you were assigned the right to take actions in its name?

Re: Ask HN: Why downvote? I honestly do not get it.

#93

Post by chrischen »

Semiapies wrote: post #78
jeremyw wrote: post #65

I'm impressed by the shifting voting trends when a new, dissenting (sub)opinion is attached to a comment. A string of upvotes now is halted/reversed. And the polarity change can happen several times. An articulated position unleashes the silent thinker or is this a characteristic of mob rule? (When it happens to me, it's mob rule. :) I'm also terribly sad when someone is downvoted in an opinion-thread (e.g. what is y…

Someone can be off-topic or troll in opinion threads. "What's your favorite X?" is not the place for "Stop using different types of Xs and start using Ys, noobs.", for example.

As much as someone could type that, someone could also downvote because they were thinking that.

Re: Ask HN: Why downvote? I honestly do not get it.

#94

Post by chrischen »

Semiapies wrote: post #63
fnid wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the problems is that people don't down vote for the same reasons. Some down because they disagree, others to resort topics, others because they don't like the person's comment, tone, bias, etc... Without a consistent use of the down vote, the effect is undesired by most.

"the effect is undesired by most" Says who?

I think he means the effect is undesired because we're trying to get rid of "stupid" comments but in practice such a system gives way to abuse.

Re: Ask HN: Why downvote? I honestly do not get it.

#95

Post by chrischen »

ax0n wrote: post #42
basdog22 wrote: post #38

The worst part is downvoting someone without expressing why you did it. For example : This is spam. Downvoted. Most of the time people seem to just don't care about how someone else feels when gets downvoted. In the case of an article this gets more frustrating because there was effort to do it, document it and other things too. Even if the article is not what you think of "cool" it doesn't mean that it doesn't deser…

I've had comments and submissions of mine downvoted before, and I didn't take offense. The article or my comment was simply "unliked" rather than enjoyed (upvoted) or met with indifference (left alone). Reading anything more into it is kind of silly. You certainly can't please everyone all the time.

I think it's actually natural for people to feel offended, because down voting is an active engagement.

There are actually 3 choices. Ignore, up vote, and down vote. Down vote is taking the time and effort to click and purposely bury something. If it was unliked it would have probably simply been ignored. I seriously doubt most people read through each title and only either down vote or up vote. Most would probably be ignored, with the particularly hated ones being more likely down voted.

Re: Ask HN: Why downvote? I honestly do not get it.

#96

Post by rokhayakebe »

bendotc wrote: post #5

I always find opinions like these to be illuminating whenever people claim that people don't care about karma, as it's obviously just a silly number in some computer running this website. As it turns out, some people find losing just 1 point to be indistinguishable from throwing a rock at the person. For what it's worth, the downvote is for the comment, not the poster. It influences a sorting algorithm that shapes th…

It influences a sorting algorithm that shapes the way people read...

What gives you the right to decide how a thread should or shouldn't be displayed for others? Aren't you valuing your opinion too much?

When I personally down-vote, it's because I think you're wrong

You can simply make your point in a reply, or maybe make use of silence.

or negative value (spam, noise, etc)

There is a FLAG link for all comments.

it really has nothing to do with your worth as a person

Comments reflect the way the poster thinks. You will not find anything more personal to us than the way we think.

or any desire to hurt you

But you do.

Re: Ask HN: Why downvote? I honestly do not get it.

#97

Post by chrischen »

chrischen wrote: post #61
viraptor wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While upvoting better comments is a really good thing, I don't think it's enough. Let's say that instead of trying to give a counter example for your idea, I simply write something like: "No - that's lame and you should be downvoted, because you're wrong right now." If that was the last response - everything's fine - the thread gets lost. But if someone tries to explain that I'm not correct, we get a standard war tha…

I think you're talking about a different problem. And this problem specifically deals with responses to threaded comments that are on top. I think in this case simply flag it if it seems trollish. Or only allow down votes on responses. Because allowing down votes on all comments introduces a whole new set of problems like majority induced silencing.

Another solution would be to offer the ability to sort comments strictly by karma.

Re: Ask HN: Why downvote? I honestly do not get it.

#100

Post by SlyShy »

Semiapies wrote: post #75
SlyShy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, I doubt downvoting is a deterrent to any troll. Trolls are already determined to anger the community. Downvoting is more of a deterrent to people who care what the community thinks of them--they might refrain from posting their contrary opinions as a result. That said, I still think downvoting is a useful function, because the point is to filter discussion.

I personally like that trolling comments tend to rapidly vanish into light-gray text.

Yes, that's what I'm saying about the filtering, is that it serves to hide trolling comments. That doesn't necessarily mean that it reduces the number of trolls, as suggested by the parent.
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