Dear YC: Please stop downvoting thoughtful comments you disagree with. • Hacker News Board

Re: Dear YC: Please stop downvoting thoughtful comments you disagree with.

#21

Post by ptn » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 1:36 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #5

Thoughtful comments that are factually wrong should be downvoted. Seriously. If your code doesn't compile, the compiler doesn't care how much effort it took you to write it...

Disagreed. If downvoting meant "you are wrong", then it would be kinda like a black-hole if it weren't accompained by a reply, because the obvious follow-up question "why is that wrong?" would go un-answered, and thus nobody learns. Since learning is what we are here for, please correct "factually wrong" posts with a reply, not with a downvote.

It seems more correct to downvote those posts or replies that do not follow the vein of intellectual conversation that HN tries to promote, those comments that distract you from the main topic instead of giving you more info to chew on.

Similarly, those that do make you think, whether you agree or not, have contributed to the conversation and should not be downvoted. If you only wanted correct comments, then this wouldn't be a conversation, it would be going over what you already know, saying out loud what you read in a book or just plain brain masturbation.

Let's have a conversation.

Re: Dear YC: Please stop downvoting thoughtful comments you disagree with.

#22

Post by indiejade » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 1:41 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #17

ghiotion wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll second this with one minor caveat. They're not necessarily "downmodding offenders" until proven as such by the data you're requesting. They're just the top 50 downvoters.

That data's not meaningful without also considering upvotes - they could just be prolific modders.

Maybe. But some people tend to see the good in things, and some tend to focus on the bad. I think it could be reasonably hypothesized that persons who downvote a lot focus more on the negatives.

It's hard to read contextualization or to infer what we refer to as vocal inflections through writing; I am as guilty as anyone of the occasional "posting while drinking" (which I've noticed does tend to make my writing seem a little bit more hostile than intended); however, some attempts at humor here just end up falling pretty flat.

Re: Dear YC: Please stop downvoting thoughtful comments you disagree with.

#23

Post by growt » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 1:46 PM UTC

Quick: can someone create a proxy to hn which does the regexp s/\d+ points? by//g

I wonder what it would "feel" like to read hn without the quantification of quality.

After all the most interesting stuff would be still on top.

Edit:

I've done a quick bookmarklet, it seems to break links, but it gives an impression (so enter in in the urlbar at any hn site and press enter):

javascript:document.documentElement.innerHTML = document.documentElement.innerHTML.replace(/\d+ points?| by |/g,"");

Re: Dear YC: Please stop downvoting thoughtful comments you disagree with.

#24

Post by gaius » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 1:51 PM UTC

ptn wrote: post #21

gaius wrote: post #5

Thoughtful comments that are factually wrong should be downvoted. Seriously. If your code doesn't compile, the compiler doesn't care how much effort it took you to write it...

Disagreed. If downvoting meant "you are wrong", then it would be kinda like a black-hole if it weren't accompained by a reply, because the obvious follow-up question "why is that wrong?" would go un-answered, and thus nobody learns. Since learning is what we are here for, please correct "factually wrong" posts with a reply, not with a downvote. It seems more correct to downvote those posts or replies that do not foll…

It is not an either/or - you can both vote and reply.

Thoughtfulness has little correlation to the quality of a comment. A one-liner from a subject matter expert is worth more than an entire paragraph of mere hearsay.

Re: Dear YC: Please stop downvoting thoughtful comments you disagree with.

#25

Post by andreyf » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 1:53 PM UTC

plinkplonk wrote: post #3

It would be nice if you linked to the actual comments that were down voted instead of to article pages with dozens of comments, where, presumably, the reader has to guess which comment you were referring to.

I thought there were too many comments to link to:

Create's and bitdiddle's responses here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=720924

This response: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=720909

Is identical to this one: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=720766

My comments in this entire conversation, also: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=720569 (at one point, each of mine was <0, now upvoted out of nagativity, thanks! :))

Re: Dear YC: Please stop downvoting thoughtful comments you disagree with.

#26

Post by daleharvey » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 1:54 PM UTC

I think the people that downvoted you in the amazon threads were doing so because they thought you were trolling.

You seem to be smart, any rational person knows why jeff bezos was apologizing, so it seemed to me like you were saying something controversial to illicit a responce, and that should be discouraged imo.

(there is obviously a line betweens devils advocate and troll which I dont think you crossed, and so didnt downvote you).

Re: Dear YC: Please stop downvoting thoughtful comments you disagree with.

#27

Post by designtofly » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 1:54 PM UTC

In the same vain, we should also discourage upvoting simply for agreement. There is no reason why one-liners should get upvoted to very high scores. Upvotes should reward content and thoughtful discussion.

Re: Dear YC: Please stop downvoting thoughtful comments you disagree with.

#28

Post by nazgulnarsil » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 1:54 PM UTC

I downvote when people post short comments that are basically "you're wrong" without any helpful criticism. When someone criticizes me in a thoughtful way I respond instead of downvoting (and often vote up if it brings up an interesting point).

A good metric that will keep conversation constructive is this: the purpose of your debate isn't to convince the person you're arguing with, it's for the benefit of the bystanders. you'll find yourself constructing much more professional arguments if you keep this in mind, the temptation to engage in "status plays" diminishes. your goal isn't to prove that you're right. your goal is for there to exist at the end a string of intelligent back and forth that display both sides of an issue in a useful way.

Re: Dear YC: Please stop downvoting thoughtful comments you disagree with.

#29

Post by Torn » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 1:54 PM UTC

plinkplonk wrote: post #10

Torn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fairly easy to scan the comments the OP is talking about -- they're light-grey with negative scores, and it's clear they've had effort put into them.

"Fairly easy to scan the comments the OP is talking about -- they're light-grey with negative scores, " not necessarily true at the time of reading (vs at the time of posting) . You forget that comment scores are dynamic and even very old comments can be upvoted past zero (downvotes have a time window) and maybe no longer "light-grey with negative scores" by the time someone reads this submission and looks for the co…

noted, thanks.

Re: Dear YC: Please stop downvoting thoughtful comments you disagree with.

#30

Post by andreyf » Fri, Jul 24, 2009, 2:00 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #5

Thoughtful comments that are factually wrong should be downvoted. Seriously. If your code doesn't compile, the compiler doesn't care how much effort it took you to write it...

Sure, here's one that's popular, but factually incorrect (+5), with my request for correction at -1 at one point: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=720644