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Please Bring Back Our Downvotes: Society Desperately Needs It

theapeiron.co.uk

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Re: Please Bring Back Our Downvotes: Society Desperately Needs It

#21

Post by crazy_horse »

I've been in academia for awhile, I'm used to getting serious criticism. I'm a man, my whole life I've been told to toughen up. There's really almost nothing you can say to me that is going to hurt me. I really mean it.

But downvotes? I pretty much won't post on HN or Reddit because of them (and the culture associated with it). I've got no problem being wrong, but when I spend a significant amount of time trying to respond to something in good faith and then someone comes along with their four accounts and downvotes every comment I got because I'm not sufficiently ideological, it's fucking stupid, and it's worse when multiple people decide they want to play that game and then the site software decides you get less rights than everyone else...and you never get good feedback on why. Why would I participate in that?

It's not that I can't take being told I'm wrong, I just don't want to be involved in a community where supposed professionals act like that; frankly is scares me that such malicious and petty people might have power.

If downvotes don't matter, if I should ignore them, then they should not exist. I'm tired of sites that build in pathological behaviors. I think we can do much better than downvotes. The world is not binary.

Re: Please Bring Back Our Downvotes: Society Desperately Needs It

#22

Post by iamadog1029 »

I don't find that voting systems are a positive evolution, generally. It's a non-committal way to interface for people that don't contribute any tangible content to a discussion. I remember when Facepunch Studios integrated it, which was simulating SA. It was years ago and I was a youth, but I remember, in myself at least, attempting to cater to voters. I don't suspect I fall far from the average interaction in that capacity. And I think that breeds disingenuous user interaction. And FP was a bog-standard BBS forum, the only thing that decided the content stream was moderation and new posts/threads; using votes to promote or demote content streams - targeting, [at least] has been pretty widely discussed as a hazard and that's all I see it as. So between those two features, targeting and disingenuous posting (itself a form of targeting), I think that voting systems at large are a real detractor in general conversation. And if we consider malefactors and echo formation... I just don't see a whole lot in the way of good other than streamlining and automating moderation, which is appropriate in some circumstances, in general conversation I think it just compromises the whole thing.

Of course, it's all dependent on the design of the website. If you're there simply to generate reams of data for marketing teams to sop up, that's something you can do with this sort of system. But if you're designing for legitimate vulnerability and honest to god expression 4chan is probably the best model in a sort of ironic twist. It's user-streamlined, no account, setup or email, the page is barebones, you don't need to post anything whatever and there's no history to haunt you. And maybe you could argue you can't trust anything on 4chan, but you could argue the same anywhere, and in fact I'd assume that the quantity of Facebook and Reddit are far more rife with artifice than 4chan. But FB and R aren't actually designed for absolute expression, they're designed to generate marketing feedback.

Re: Please Bring Back Our Downvotes: Society Desperately Needs It

#23

Post by rand0mx1 »

irjustin wrote: post #16
drstewart wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, my experience has been that any downvote system will turn an audience that's divided 51-49 to one that's partitioned 51-0 in very short order. If anything, I've come to the conclusion that downvoting should be completely removed from most online platforms.

What's happening in Hnews then? Is it bad?

Not all users can downvote,only few can.

Re: Please Bring Back Our Downvotes: Society Desperately Needs It

#24

Post by spinax »

crazy_horse wrote: post #21

I've been in academia for awhile, I'm used to getting serious criticism. I'm a man, my whole life I've been told to toughen up. There's really almost nothing you can say to me that is going to hurt me. I really mean it. But downvotes? I pretty much won't post on HN or Reddit because of them (and the culture associated with it). I've got no problem being wrong, but when I spend a significant amount of time trying to r…

It's especially bad on a site like HN - an account only gets a downvote capability if they've received what is it, 400 upvotes? - so you're assured that every downvote you receive is someone who says lots of things other people like to upvote (or are a serial link poster getting link karma upvotes).

There is an echo chamber here based on how the downvote rules work, and I've watched people's comments get brigade downvoted in minutes for posting a well written post like yours which goes against what all the "cool kids" think. And unless you run at the mouth to become "liked", you don't get the chance to disagree with your own downvote.

Re: Please Bring Back Our Downvotes: Society Desperately Needs It

#25

Post by jeppester »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #14
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #3

The trouble with up and down buttons, or like and dislike is that they often are only used by the lovers or haters - the 10-20% of people at the opposite ends of the 'likeability spectrum'. I've never figured out if up/down votes mean the content is good or that people agree with it? (the old issue of people liking death announcements/obituaries) On HN I tend not to downvote unless the person is writing like they're…

> I've never figured out if up/down votes mean the content is good or that people agree with it? Most social sites have guidelines that downvotes are only supposed to be used for comments that break their guidelines. On HN and Reddit it seems many people ignore this and readily downvote opinions they disagree with or comments they simply don’t want to hear. This is most obvious on posts about contentious topics (poli…

I think a big part of the issue is that it's just too easy to downvote something.

I wonder how it would change the situation if you had to defend/explain your downvotes.

Re: Please Bring Back Our Downvotes: Society Desperately Needs It

#26

Post by bena »

crazy_horse wrote: post #21

I've been in academia for awhile, I'm used to getting serious criticism. I'm a man, my whole life I've been told to toughen up. There's really almost nothing you can say to me that is going to hurt me. I really mean it. But downvotes? I pretty much won't post on HN or Reddit because of them (and the culture associated with it). I've got no problem being wrong, but when I spend a significant amount of time trying to r…

Every forum, every social media site, every community participation vehicle rewards one thing above all: time.

Do I have time to make 4 or 5 burner accounts to enforce my votes? No. I have things to do.

Do I have time to post ad nauseum about any given topic to make my point? No. I have things to do.

And I'm sure you have things to do as well, so do a lot of people. But those that don't, have the thing we lack: time. And there's often reasons they have all that time. Often good reasons. And it's not because they're pleasant people.

Re: Please Bring Back Our Downvotes: Society Desperately Needs It

#27

Post by acover »

crazy_horse wrote: post #21

I've been in academia for awhile, I'm used to getting serious criticism. I'm a man, my whole life I've been told to toughen up. There's really almost nothing you can say to me that is going to hurt me. I really mean it. But downvotes? I pretty much won't post on HN or Reddit because of them (and the culture associated with it). I've got no problem being wrong, but when I spend a significant amount of time trying to r…

Votes determine visibility. A post doesn't matter if it's not visible.

A bad vote is more harmful than a bad comment. Bad comments get sorted. A bad vote makes the front page worse.

Making votes visible makes the bad actors visible. Though I think other feedback mechanisms are better.

Re: Please Bring Back Our Downvotes: Society Desperately Needs It

#28

Post by guerrilla »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #5

Facebook has an option to “See fewer posts like this”. Select the three dots icon on the upper right corner of a post (mobile app) to see it. It doesn’t notify the person that you’ve chosen to not see their posts, so there’s no social risk in clicking it. I use it liberally and it works. I check Facebook maybe a couple times a month and almost never see anything I don’t want to see any more.

It doesn't work at all. Once I accidentally liked some movie thing and then it wouldn't stop shoeing me movie quoted. If U'd dislike one and block ine account then it'd show me another. I had to block a hundred, literally, until it startef showing less of them. It still showd ine ocassionally.

Re: Please Bring Back Our Downvotes: Society Desperately Needs It

#29

Post by Moodles »

crazy_horse wrote: post #21

I've been in academia for awhile, I'm used to getting serious criticism. I'm a man, my whole life I've been told to toughen up. There's really almost nothing you can say to me that is going to hurt me. I really mean it. But downvotes? I pretty much won't post on HN or Reddit because of them (and the culture associated with it). I've got no problem being wrong, but when I spend a significant amount of time trying to r…

I wonder how much downvotes are to blame for the incredible political bias over on Reddit (just check out /r/politics). Or whether it would naturally occur without the downvotes anyway. I suspect downvotes exacerbate the problem but probably aren't the only cause.

Re: Please Bring Back Our Downvotes: Society Desperately Needs It

#30

Post by bitexploder »

spinax wrote: post #24
crazy_horse wrote: post #21

I've been in academia for awhile, I'm used to getting serious criticism. I'm a man, my whole life I've been told to toughen up. There's really almost nothing you can say to me that is going to hurt me. I really mean it. But downvotes? I pretty much won't post on HN or Reddit because of them (and the culture associated with it). I've got no problem being wrong, but when I spend a significant amount of time trying to r…

It's especially bad on a site like HN - an account only gets a downvote capability if they've received what is it, 400 upvotes? - so you're assured that every downvote you receive is someone who says lots of things other people like to upvote (or are a serial link poster getting link karma upvotes). There is an echo chamber here based on how the downvote rules work, and I've watched people's comments get brigade down…

HN has a certain discussion parameters and moderation system on purpose. The goal on HN isn’t to allow open ended discussions on all topics. I for one appreciate that we can talk computers and technology here and that the moderators keep the average level of the discussion high. If I want politics and other garbage I’ll go somewhere else. I have never experienced any issues here. Been here a looong time. Don’t be edgy and contribute positively to discussions with curiosity and you will do fine.
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