Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#171

Post by po » Sun, Oct 31, 2010, 3:28 PM UTC

JeremyChase wrote: post #154

chaosmachine wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvoted comments are bad for the community. They are literally negative. Remove downvotes. Anything that truly deserves downvotes probably deserves flagging/deading, too. Downvotes change how you think about reading comments. Instead of "was this helpful?" you're thinking "do i love this or hate this?". It's polarizing, and as the number of users increases, it's easy for a comment to hit -4 in a couple minutes. Peo…

I'm embarrassed to say that I have accidentally upvoted many times. This always happen on a particularly egregious comment that caused you to be distracted while clicking. We should not remove down votes outright. I've seen a comment get downvoted to -4 because people didn't like the commentary, but then shoot back up to +10 when it was shown that they were correct after all.

…but if we remove downvotes, they will just stay at 1 instead of getting downvoted. Later they will still be able to shoot up. They will only get flagged if they are actively in the wrong spirit of the community. (spam, abuse, etc..)

The concept of "down" is conflated in people's minds in a way "up" isn't. It is used by people to mean either "I disagree" or "totally inappropriate". The first is not supposed to affect karma but the second is. If you simply replace "down" with "flag" it changes how people think about it.

As for accidental up-voting, moving the links so that there is separation would fix that.

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#172

Post by Batsu » Sun, Oct 31, 2010, 3:32 PM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #140

pg wrote: post #30

Incidentally, if anyone has any suggestions for technical changes/features/tricks that would help fix the problem, I'm all ears. Fending off the decline everyone thinks is inevitable for forums is the main thing I work on. It has been since practically the beginning.

You're almost there with your "reply time delay". Just take it all the way... Limit the number of times one person can post in the same thread to once (or maybe twice), either from the top node or a sub-node. Example: PersonA says, "blah blah blah..." PersonB says, "You're an idiot because blah blah blah..." PersonA is locked out from replying to PersonB. This will do 7 things: 1. It will eliminate argument strings b…

I would argue that if there is a way to get a comment on the board at all, those who want to continue arguing will post those comments.

Also, if you can edit your comments, you're opening the door for twisted threads where replies are in one block per person with "@person timestamp," although that's easily fixed by only allowing editing for a short while.

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#173

Post by DTrejo » Sun, Oct 31, 2010, 3:33 PM UTC

rjurney wrote: post #92

pg wrote: post #30

Incidentally, if anyone has any suggestions for technical changes/features/tricks that would help fix the problem, I'm all ears. Fending off the decline everyone thinks is inevitable for forums is the main thing I work on. It has been since practically the beginning.

Flagging an entire thread by clicking 'troll' would help. The up/down voting tends to promote trolling, as the first controversial cliche is the top comment, having spawned a deep threaded conversation with lots of emotions and voting. A different symbol is needed. Something that makes people take pause and say, 'Is this a good subtopic of this link, or is it the exact debate anyone would have predicted?' Put troll t…

I would say that many do not know the flag options exists, because you first have to click the comment's link, and then click flag. If more people knew about the flag button, and if more people remembered to use it, then I think these threads would disappear more quickly.

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#174

Post by csomar » Sun, Oct 31, 2010, 3:34 PM UTC

araneae wrote: post #164

chaosmachine wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvoted comments are bad for the community. They are literally negative. Remove downvotes. Anything that truly deserves downvotes probably deserves flagging/deading, too. Downvotes change how you think about reading comments. Instead of "was this helpful?" you're thinking "do i love this or hate this?". It's polarizing, and as the number of users increases, it's easy for a comment to hit -4 in a couple minutes. Peo…

Agreed. I think downvoting starts a revenge cycle, and the methods that are in place to prevent revenge only make the revenge less direct. For instance, you can't downvote replies to your comment, but you can go into their user history and downvote their other comments. This is worse, because their other comments quite literally have nothing to do with what would have been downvoted had that measure not been in place…

You can't down vote old comments, so there history is safe.

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#175

Post by Alex3917 » Sun, Oct 31, 2010, 3:37 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #30

Incidentally, if anyone has any suggestions for technical changes/features/tricks that would help fix the problem, I'm all ears. Fending off the decline everyone thinks is inevitable for forums is the main thing I work on. It has been since practically the beginning.

For every one mean-sprited comment, there are probably at least five comments that are just plain wrong about something. Are mean-spirited comments really that big of a problem compared with, say, commenters critiquing the methodology of academic papers they haven't read?

edit: Jon Stewart is generally quite mean spirited, in that he goes out of his way to get people fired and treats people he disagrees with like little kids, but if he were an HN contributor would he really make the community worse?

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#176

Post by csomar » Sun, Oct 31, 2010, 3:38 PM UTC

As someone who was a "bad" user (under another username); posting rather useless, short, unsighted comments and submissions; I think the best way is to "educate people".

This is not only a HN culture, it's a civilian culture. Limit the freedom of newbies until they are more mature. When you are committed to the community, you become more responsible and work toward creating a name/friends. When you are new, you pretty much don't care.

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#177

Post by rokhayakebe » Sun, Oct 31, 2010, 3:38 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #30

Incidentally, if anyone has any suggestions for technical changes/features/tricks that would help fix the problem, I'm all ears. Fending off the decline everyone thinks is inevitable for forums is the main thing I work on. It has been since practically the beginning.

Don't allow downvote without a comment. Maybe use a different color font for username who downvoted.

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#178

Post by mvalente » Sun, Oct 31, 2010, 3:43 PM UTC

Reasons: "The difference between the two societies is that in the society which performs poorly:

a) the stupid members of the society are allowed by the other members to become more active and take more actions; b) there is a change in the composition of the non-stupid section with a relative decline of populations of areas I, H1 and B1 and a proportionate increase of populations H2 and B2."

http://www.searchlores.org/realicra/basiclawsofhumanstupidit...

Solutions: "1.) If you were going to build a piece of social software to support large and long-lived groups, what would you design for? The first thing you would design for is handles the user can invest in. 2.) Second, you have to design a way for there to be members in good standing. Have to design some way in which good works get recognized. The minimal way is, posts appear with identity. You can do more sophisticated things like having formal karma or "member since." 3.) Three, you need barriers to participation. This is one of the things that killed Usenet. You have to have some cost to either join or participate, if not at the lowest level, then at higher levels. There needs to be some kind of segmentation of capabilities. 4.) And, finally, you have to find a way to spare the group from scale."

http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#179

Post by vog » Sun, Oct 31, 2010, 3:49 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #30

Incidentally, if anyone has any suggestions for technical changes/features/tricks that would help fix the problem, I'm all ears. Fending off the decline everyone thinks is inevitable for forums is the main thing I work on. It has been since practically the beginning.

Insert a delay of, say, 10 minutes until a new comment is shown.

Of course, the commenter should see it immediately and should be able to correct it (or even delete it) in the meantime. But everyone else should see it only after 10 minutes.

This will slow down A-B-A-B-... types of conversation which are usually only productive when being written thoughtfully and thus slowly anyway.

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#180

Post by chailatte » Sun, Oct 31, 2010, 4:03 PM UTC

I would say the phenomenon is merely a sign of the times.

An echoing of the cries from the world and its people.

People are frustrated with rising food/gas/health insurance, with layoffs after layoffs and local businesses closing, with governments that work with banks to steal from the citizen, with corporations that pollute the environment and food source without consequences.

Their mood is sour. Their heart is heavy.

They know the good times is over, but they can't see when the bad times will stop, if ever.

They weep for their children, yet they intoxicate themselves with alcohol and tv and sports and video games, unable to rise up to fight for themselves.

And so they come online and vent their frustration and anger on others, because its just easier. Because nothing of consequence happens anyways, except we all drag each down further and further.