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The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

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Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#121

Post by jointpdf »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #37
jerrac wrote: post #19

I initially loved the idea of voting posts up and down. Thanks to seeing how it actually works on SO and here, well, I am not much of a fan anymore. At the very least, if I ever implemented it myself, I'd require that people explain why they are voting up, or voting down, before they could vote. And I'd not limit users from being able to vote until they magically get to the right amount of "karma". Without requiring…

Yeah, I really wish that HN required you to comment in order to downvote. Or even just required that a comment had replies before it could be downvoted; I don't care so much that every single person justifies their downvote as that the person getting downvoted gets an explanation.

I think this could backfire. Toxic/trolling comments do not need to be dignified with a response, and requiring one may increase the incentive to write inflammatory posts (assuming that at least some people do this—consciously or not—to instigate reactions).

For well-intentioned posts that are factually incorrect, it seems that there are usually replies that explain the reason for the downvote. When a comment is wrongfully banished to the grey nothingness, oftentimes others step up and defend it. The community immune system functions well as is.

Also, I adore the fade-to-grey side effect of the downvotes. It’s like spritzing a cat with water for scrounging on the counters—an ultimately harmless but super effective reprimand.

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#122

Post by ryandrake »

amznthrwaway wrote: post #106
Tenoke wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Flagging is for problematic stories. If you follow at all which stories are rejected flagging is used as downvoting on a daily basis unless your definition of 'problematic' is extremely broad.

The notion that HN is well-moderated is bizarre. HN is exceptionally hostile to those who hold beliefs contrary to HN-acceptable norms. If you want to get banned quickly, criticize pg portfolio companies (even politely, with valid criticism), point out that white supremacist and other hate speech is welcomed so long as it is polite; point out that responses to hate speech are _not_ tolerated..... The community here u…

> These days, that doesn’t happen. The discussions are lower value, less open minded, and more strident. It’s a pile of shit.

The decline of open-mindedness is what I've noticed the most. The assumption of good intention on the part of someone with an opposing view. The willingness to at least entertain a thought or argument, even if you ultimately don't accept it. Much easier to just hit the down-arrow and move on, satisfied in knowing that wrongthink was punished with a nice -1.

There are definitely points of view here, no matter how well articulated, that will be buried in low-contrast purgatory very quickly. And I'm not just talking about "white supremacy" type stuff.

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#123

Post by fouric »

amznthrwaway wrote: post #106
Tenoke wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Flagging is for problematic stories. If you follow at all which stories are rejected flagging is used as downvoting on a daily basis unless your definition of 'problematic' is extremely broad.

The notion that HN is well-moderated is bizarre. HN is exceptionally hostile to those who hold beliefs contrary to HN-acceptable norms. If you want to get banned quickly, criticize pg portfolio companies (even politely, with valid criticism), point out that white supremacist and other hate speech is welcomed so long as it is polite; point out that responses to hate speech are _not_ tolerated..... The community here u…

> Daniel Gackle will ban your ass if you point out, for example, that he tolerates and even welcomes extremely bigoted shit.

Citation needed - this claim is very far from my own experience. If you think you'll be banned, then email me with your evidence and I'll look at it.

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#124

Post by jvanderbot »

benlivengood wrote: post #40

I've been through several forum deaths. The cause is usually large growth from people with very different mindsets that downvote for essentially political reasons instead of encouraging good discourse. This makes the best people leave in short order. In a sense there's no way to structure a forum to avoid this. Being outnumbered by people who don't value open communication is unpleasant with or without downvoting. Fo…

>The cause is usually large growth from people with very different mindsets that downvote for essentially political reasons instead of encouraging good discourse.

You've quite well described my latest experienced with StackExchange sites that are very popular (like Stack Overflow). The downvotes rain for any question without feedback. A comment provides an answer, but not an "Answer" that can be pinned. Vague "Opinion based" flags are sometimes levied, but similar questions for different regimes are upvoted and given quality answers.

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#125

Post by [deleted] »

tediousdemise wrote: post #63
dang wrote: post #23

Getting it wrong for 12 years now: The Value of Downvoting, Or, How Hacker News Gets It Wrong (2009) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25633668 - Jan 2021 (1 comment) 10 Years In, Was He Right? “Value of Downvoting; How HN Gets It Wrong” - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23409231 - June 2020 (1 comment) The Value of Downvoting, or, How Hacker News Gets It Wrong (2009) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=…

I'm a huge fan of no downvote button, so much so in fact that I don't think users of any karma level should be able to do it. Why concentrate this power into the hands of a privileged few? It's a representative system where we vote certain users into high karma, but they needn't return any favors and can subsequently downvote things that are otherwise suitable for the platform. Privilege can, and will, be abused in f…

[deleted]

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#126

Post by dmos62 »

wvenable wrote: post #76
tpmx wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are mostly out of date. Maybe stop self-celebrating past victories, it's not very becoming. ;) Flagging is where HN gets it wrong, IMO. So many slightly controversial and important topics are being removed with this mechanism. We're left with all the vanilla stuff.

Flagging is necessary to keep the site on-topic in my opinion. People will happily upvote controversy that has little value or importance to this site.

> controversy that has little value or importance to this site

What do you mean by "this site"? The participants in this forum are the site. I've had discussions flagged that I thought to be valuable. Why would you want to get rid of controversy anyway? Do you want to discuss only popular old hat things? Stability under diversity is a sign of health in an ecosystem.

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#127

Post by bena »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #97
bena wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a comment on reddit that was both downvoted to nearly -100 and was given gold. I was given the award because the actual information I gave was correct. Which someone mentioned in a reply. It was downvoted because no one liked the answer.

Well, you have my respect. Standing on a thing you know to be correct that gets that much open dislike is not an easy thing to do. Most people likely would have deleted the correct but hated answer long before it accumulated that many downvotes.

The only posts I delete are when the site goes weird and it double or triple posts.

I never delete posts simply because they are unpopular. In my personal view, that's a coward's move. It tells me that the user doesn't really have any actual conviction, doesn't really believe in what they're saying. If being popular is more important to that person than being correct, then I find their opinion worthless. Because apparently it can be dictated by popular opinion. And I mean actually correct, not just "winning the argument".

I also dislike people who double reply or who use the edit feature to essentially pull an "and another thing". Living out the l'esprit d'escalier fantasy essentially.

Also people who proclaim they won't be responding or tell others not to respond. It's a poor rhetorical tactic to silence opposition because you don't have a good response.

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#129

Post by kodah »

dang wrote: post #23

Getting it wrong for 12 years now: The Value of Downvoting, Or, How Hacker News Gets It Wrong (2009) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25633668 - Jan 2021 (1 comment) 10 Years In, Was He Right? “Value of Downvoting; How HN Gets It Wrong” - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23409231 - June 2020 (1 comment) The Value of Downvoting, or, How Hacker News Gets It Wrong (2009) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=…

I don't know if you meant to make this funny, but I laughed really hard.

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#130

Post by kingsuper20 »

ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #10

Interesting, making downvotes costly seems like a good system. Though downvotes seem to work pretty well as-is for HN, I rarely see dead comments that were killed by downvotes rather than anti-spam features. If we take HN as reddit 2.0, what would be HN 2.0 I wonder? If I were the one to make it I'd create a system to promote the comments of people with professional expertise on the subject being discussed. HN has mo…

"Interesting, making downvotes costly seems like a good system."

Say, I like the idea. No doubt people have discussed this to death elsewhere. You can definitely see downvotes used as simple disagreement or for punishing unpopular speech (rather than being wrong, let's say). That's a bummer but is a side effect of modern times.

Let's say that a issuing a downvote resulted in a 15 minute break from posting or voting. You gotta want to do it.

" people speak authoritatively about things they don't know about."

I'm afraid that's baked deeply into the DNA of computer programmers.

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