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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)

#381

Post by dahdum »

diob wrote: post #297
Hiopl wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also baffled by his position. I often think that downvotes on HN serve to reinforce conformism to an accepted set of values and ideas. Which might be okay if, say, you want to "immunize" a community against racism, sexism or fake information, but isn't great if issues (as in politics or even in tech on a social level) are a lot more nuanced and there might be plenty of room to explore ideas off the beaten path (a…

I agree, I've seen a lot of downvotes simply on things that aren't pro capitalism. I wish comments were used instead.

In my experience those comments are often paired with tone problems, such as arrogance or aggressiveness. I always try to vouch or upvote any that seem unwarranted to me.

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

#382

Post by leesalminen »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #378
tirrex wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You need mechanisms for helping people learn "This is not welcome on HN. This is not how we do things here." Can we use flags for this purpose? Problem is even though a comment does not violate any rule, it gets down-voted as hell if you say something that majority of people would not like. e.g there are posts about hyped programming languages, go check out down-voted comments, most of them does not deserve to be d…

As someone who gets downvoted probably more than average, I don't agree with you. Downvotes are the least problematic way for people to tell me they have some problem with my comment and minimizes the fallout from me having to try to navigate gender politics as part of the mix. It would be vastly worse for men to only be able to express sexist garbage by openly attacking me and trying to find some plausible excuse fo…

Even though I find myself in disagreement with some of your posts on here, I still value and enjoy your presence here. The internet shouldn’t be an echo chamber. HN has meant a lot to me too, so I can relate with you on that. Have an upvote, and an amazing evening!

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

#383

Post by busymom0 »

paxys wrote: post #298
Graffur wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact it seems like a no brainer decision. Why should a day 1 account be able to downvote content?

Why should a day 1 account be able to upvote content? They both ultimately have the same impact.

If a new account can neither upvote nor downvote, then wouldn't it be a catch 22 where no one ever gains any karma? Also as someone else pointed out, people often downvote for political purposes whereas the only reason I can think of someone abusing upvotes would be for spam which gets handled by HN's filters pretty well.

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

#384

Post by dheera »

FalconSensei wrote: post #318
crazygringo wrote: post #198

It's kind of amusing that the entire premise of this article is undone by the aside: > update: Apparently it is possible to downvote comments, which I never realized. But while downvotes seem useful for comments where there's a lot more scope for false information, trolling, etc., I'm not sure what the additional value would be for posts -- they're either popular or not, and you can still flag posts that are actively…

> Peers express disapproval and disagreement by commenting within the post. As I am doing precisely right now. ;) Exactly. And this is actually something that I like about Twitter, and hate about Reddit. Don't like what I post? Reply and say it.

A lot of HN doesn't do that, they just downvote.

I think it would make a lot of sense to require a response before you can downvote.

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

#385

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

Hiopl wrote: post #289
crazygringo wrote: post #198

It's kind of amusing that the entire premise of this article is undone by the aside: > update: Apparently it is possible to downvote comments, which I never realized. But while downvotes seem useful for comments where there's a lot more scope for false information, trolling, etc., I'm not sure what the additional value would be for posts -- they're either popular or not, and you can still flag posts that are actively…

I'm also baffled by his position. I often think that downvotes on HN serve to reinforce conformism to an accepted set of values and ideas. Which might be okay if, say, you want to "immunize" a community against racism, sexism or fake information, but isn't great if issues (as in politics or even in tech on a social level) are a lot more nuanced and there might be plenty of room to explore ideas off the beaten path (a…

I had to vouch for an inoffensive vanilla comment the other day. The downvote army frequently crosses the line to shape their ideology.

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

#386

Post by kwdc »

I find the "I disagree with you so I'll downvote you" approach to comments is quite useless. Should require a comment in the very least if you have any concept of adding value. Especially in political discussions I've seen. Its blatantly obvious someone is downvoting simply because they disagree. That should be trackable and that type of action flaggable in itself. But I understand the overhead it would create.

Flagging without reason is likely equally obnoxious.

If the downvoted person nas to wonder about the reason "why?" then the system isn’t helping.

I've seen plenty of faded out, non-snarky, non-trolling comments that were actually on-topic and relevant. But enough people didn't agree. Making them hard to read just means I now apply a extension to find out why it is being blocked. Often the faded out comment is informative specifically because it annoyed or offended someone who disagreed.

Looking back at some of my own comments that were downvoted, I have no idea why it happened. I asked others for their opinion. They have no idea either. So what was their intent? I literally don't know why. No self reflection occurs because there's no clear reason.

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

#387

Post by Turing_Machine »

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…

I think downvoting should cost something. Maybe not a whole point, but something.

If shutting someone else up (and let's not mince words here... that is exactly what you are doing) isn't worth even a token cost to you, maybe you should reconsider whether shutting them up is truly justified in the first place.

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

#388

Post by krapp »

dang wrote: post #366
krapp wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things have been a lot more equitable since pg was running the show. Although to be fair sometimes you come along a bit late and people don't actually see your comment. If it's not still on the first page of their threads list they're probably never going to notice it. Maybe there should be a message when someone logs in to let them know what flags are against their account.

Yeah, that's a problem. I'm often as much as a couple days behind in looking through flagged comments. I think if we build any more software around banning/penalties, it might be some kind of probation system, i.e. a series of temporary bans, maybe with exponential backoff, and with permanent bannage only as an end state. I can think of reasons why it might work better, including: (1) humans tend to do well with feed…

The ability to ban people from specific threads might be a good idea.

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

#389

Post by davesque »

crazygringo wrote: post #198

It's kind of amusing that the entire premise of this article is undone by the aside: > update: Apparently it is possible to downvote comments, which I never realized. But while downvotes seem useful for comments where there's a lot more scope for false information, trolling, etc., I'm not sure what the additional value would be for posts -- they're either popular or not, and you can still flag posts that are actively…

I think it's worth wondering whether or not he still holds any of the opinions expressed in the article. It looks like it was written over a decade ago.

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

#390

Post by airhead969 »

The other big issue is the ambiguity of the vote: dis/approval, dis/agreement, or low-/high-signal?

I think agreement and interesting (signal) need separate votes. It could also be nice to have a hilarity vote that can be de-prioritized, allowing optional entertainment value without shunning it completely.

Also, flagging should be reserved for absolutely deplorable comments, not microaggressions or score-settling.

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