[deleted]
Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments
201–210 of 297 posts
Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
I havent figured out anything specific, but I have a couple of thoughts about the karma system. It occurs to me that the main failure of karma-type systems in general is valuing quantity over quality. This is perfectly rational for a commercial site that seeks to maximise engagement and page views, but it seems to actively harm both comment quality and the community dynamic. It seems that the prime concern we have fo…
We also measure average comment score. It's the avg field on the profile page, and it's displayed along with total karma on the leaderboard: http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders
[deleted]
Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Ah, ok, that makes a lot more sense. I was imagining removing comments that had been downvoted; not removing the link to downvote.
I generally agree with that, but it reminds me of another problem. The Karma number is now an ever-growing and meaningless figure. I think it should be harder to improve your karma as you get higher, and it should be easier to lose it. That it actually has a meaning.
Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments
#204Earlier 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've often thought of it. The reason I had downvotes originally was to deter people from saying things that were mean or stupid. But maybe the right way to deal with that is a separate mechanism from voting, as it is with stories. Maybe the right combo for comments is an uparrow, plus a flag link, and encourage users to flag comments that are mean or stupid. I'll think about the real solution more after I'm done read…
I've had my comments republished in your monthly but I rarely comment on HN anymore due to the negativity. Case in point:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1652566
We've gained a few trolls but I don't think we've suffered from evaporative cooling yet so it's not too late. I support removing down voting and switching to flagging specific offenses e.g. spam|offensive|troll to start.
Alternatively [just a crazy thought] how about we open up and show what each user has down voted. Perhaps as a courtesy we could only show down-votes starting Halloween 2010.
Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments
#205Earlier 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've often thought of it. The reason I had downvotes originally was to deter people from saying things that were mean or stupid. But maybe the right way to deal with that is a separate mechanism from voting, as it is with stories. Maybe the right combo for comments is an uparrow, plus a flag link, and encourage users to flag comments that are mean or stupid. I'll think about the real solution more after I'm done read…
[deleted]
Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments
#206Earlier 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've often thought of it. The reason I had downvotes originally was to deter people from saying things that were mean or stupid. But maybe the right way to deal with that is a separate mechanism from voting, as it is with stories. Maybe the right combo for comments is an uparrow, plus a flag link, and encourage users to flag comments that are mean or stupid. I'll think about the real solution more after I'm done read…
I think of downvotes as the gong on the gong show. One can follow all the established rules of politeness and still negatively affect the atmosphere of the site. The downvote is crucial for dealing with bores, stupid people and obnoxious comments which fit into the discussion guidelines, but are still obvious trolls.
Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments
#207Incidentally, 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.
I believe that the less anonymous a forum like this is, the more polite it will be. You have said you want people to speak to each other here as they would in the real world: well, I believe the more strongly you tie their real world identity to their account here, the more polite they would be. My suggestion, similar to that experiment in the past, and similar to twitter, add a "verified user" badge in the users pro…
I use my real name to keep myself accountable. It's not my full name, but it's enough for anybody who is interested to narrow it down in a few minutes.
Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments
#208Incidentally, 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.
A picture of a puppy above the comment field.
Alternately, what are voting ratios looking like? Are there some people downvoting more than up? If so, a notice above the comment field letting them know could help.
Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've often thought of it. The reason I had downvotes originally was to deter people from saying things that were mean or stupid. But maybe the right way to deal with that is a separate mechanism from voting, as it is with stories. Maybe the right combo for comments is an uparrow, plus a flag link, and encourage users to flag comments that are mean or stupid. I'll think about the real solution more after I'm done read…
I've had my comments republished in your monthly but I rarely comment on HN anymore due to the negativity. Case in point: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1652566 We've gained a few trolls but I don't think we've suffered from evaporative cooling yet so it's not too late. I support removing down voting and switching to flagging specific offenses e.g. spam|offensive|troll to start. Alternatively [just a crazy thoug…
It looks like that was a case of piling on. There may be stuff I can do to mitigate that specifically. BTW, it's not our monthly; Hacker Monthly is someone else's project.
Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments
#210Incidentally, 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.
Replace the total karma score by the username in the upper right of the page with the average that's already visible on the profile page.
An average is a better indicator to the user of how well they are engaging with the site. It only goes up if the user consistently posts worthwhile comments, which rewards being selective about when you post and thoughtful about what you post. Fewer and better is encouraged. Consistently good is encouraged. Lousy comments (like one-on-one arguments and "Me too!") are discouraged even if nobody votes them down.
This bridges the gap between two existing forms of feedback: total karma (which nobody really cares about, even though it's on every page) and the voting on individual comments (which is the closest thing we have to an indicator of comment quality), and gives the user continuous feedback on how much value they are adding to the site. It makes it much easier to know if your commenting is getting better or getting worse. That is, it is much easier to tell that my average is up or down from the last time I looked than it is to detect the fluctuation in the rate at which my karma accumulates.
Even if lousy comments get voted up--as happens when, for instance, someone first-posts an opinionated quip on a controversial submission and people swarm to vote in agreement--the impact on the user's average karma (which better reflects their value to the community) is much lower than the immediate spike in their total karma (the feedback they currently see). You don't have to stop people from writing such comments--just give them a smaller cookie when they do.
Obviously you can't make anybody alter their behavior over a number, but I think most here would if given a number that they could trust as representative of the shared goal of keeping this place from sucking.
tl;dr average karma is better feedback than total karma