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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)

#421

Post by greenyoda »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #420
utucuro wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visually, the low contrast from downvoting is tiring to the eyes if it's longer than a short sentence or so. As the reader, I do not see why my eyesight should be punished for this purpose. There are some really good decisions in HN, but the visual representation is not one of them.

If you click on the timestamp, it shows up as black again. I do that often because I have very serious eyesight issues.

I get eye strain from looking a bright white pages, so I use a Firefox add-on called "Dark Background and Light Text", which lets me override the foreground and background colors of pages with my choice of colors. As an added bonus, it prevents the annoying graying of comments on HN. (Use the "Simple CSS" option with HN, otherwise the up/down arrows will not display.)

For those who are interested:

Add-on page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dark-backgrou...

Github repo: https://github.com/m-khvoinitsky/dark-background-light-text-...

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

#422

Post by yetihehe »

aeternum wrote: post #414
coding123 wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the time I see downvotes with no replies it means the person generally disagrees. I upvoted you by the way :)

I think sites would benefit from having more rich voting options, for example: agree but weak-argument, disagree but well-stated, changed my view, etc. Would yield some more interesting ways to sort and rank comments.

Very good idea. I wish I could mark your post as such. Then Dang could just filter by "good idea posts" and easily see how to improve site or world.

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

#423

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

smogcutter wrote: post #351
rcurry wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you 100%, I love HN and have been here for years but the downvoting feature disgusts me. Either allow a post or don’t, but this weird “fading” of someone’s post just because some people don’t agree with what someone has to say strikes me as petty and cheap. HN should be bigger than that.

I see what you mean, but I think the “fading” is meant to systematically steer downvotes away from meaning plain disagreement. Whether it succeeds is another issue. The fading indicates that what an HN downvote means is “I think people shouldn’t see this/this shouldn’t be part of the thread”. Whether it’s bc the post is off topic, flame bait, trolling, just plain boneheaded, etc., is kind of beside the point, althoug…

It's more about the opinion relative to the overall context of the thread. As an example, if you try to defend or contextualise Facebook (the company's) actions in a thread about how much they suck, you'll get downvoted.

The same opinion in a different thread will probably just be ignored, because people self-select into threads based on what they care about, and the FB dislikers won't be so concentrated.

Nastiness and "can't you just" statements tend to get downvoted regardless of context though.

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

#424

Post by esyir »

ypeterholmes wrote: post #343
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…

Dang. I've been on here years looking for a downvote capability. Apparently you need ~500 karma and I have 200. Any upvotes would be greatly appreciated.

You seem to have missed the point of the up vote requirement for downvotes though. It exists to restrict downvotes to those who are more active, and thus more "invested?". I believe that this was a very deliberately chosen barrier to entry here.

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

#425

Post by why_Mr_Anderson »

6510 wrote: post #393
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 always make sure not to voice a position that goes against the HN group think. Often the discussion really needs it but why bother if it vanishes into the void(0)?

As a funny experiment, make 2 accounts - one for your actual opinions and other that posts only things aligned with the hive mind (e.g. praise anything mentioning Rust, hating on US, etc.) Results are .. interesting :)

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

#426

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

Scottopherson wrote: post #75

I don't have the ability to downvote. Is it possible to undo an upvote? I sometimes upvote a comment by accident when viewing HN on mobile.

I guess there are a few more karma points to go for you. Not sure what the exact threshold is.

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

#427

Post by 6510 »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #403
6510 wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not serious at all, its a news aggregator that by very silly means filters stuff to the top that is worth reading. Serious is when you have skilled professionals pick the topics and an interesting debate is when preferably everyone disagrees.

I initially downvoted this. I've reversed that and decided to reply. HN is bigger than it used to be which has helped introduce an Eternal September effect, but HN is the funnel for YC. You need an HN handle to apply to YC. For people interested in starting a business and applying to YC, there is potentially millions of dollars at stake. Especially in the beginning when it was smaller, your comments here were used to…

> your comments here were used to help them evaluate your application [...] Lots of latecomers seem oblivious to that function and think it's just a silly discussion forum.

I see, it [apparently] may still have serious implications. I still consider a serious discussion to be one where you can be right and I can be wrong - politely. It is then up to you to enlighten. Next round you get to be wrong and ill be there to point it out.

> I initially downvoted this. I've reversed that and decided to reply.

The exception not the rule. Normally I don't reply if I disagree and you downvote.

Now that I think about it the downvotes should make an interesting data-set to judge the founders by.

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

#428

Post by dmos62 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #180
dmos62 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> controversy that has little value or importance to this site What do you mean by "this site"? The participants in this forum are the site. I've had discussions flagged that I thought to be valuable. Why would you want to get rid of controversy anyway? Do you want to discuss only popular old hat things? Stability under diversity is a sign of health in an ecosystem.

> Stability under diversity is a sign of health in an ecosystem. And yet part of that diversity is that ecosystem has different niches :). You can discuss politics, sports and controversy anywhere else on the Internet. HN has a different focus, and many of us (myself included) would like to keep it that way - because that's literally the basis for the whole value of this place.

> HN has a different focus, and many of us (myself included) would like to keep it that way - because that's literally the basis for the whole value of this place.

That's where we differ. To me HN is valuable because of the people and the continued success in maintaining a good standard of discussion. To me HN is not what we discuss, but how, and with whom.

HN guidelines say that what's on topic is what a good hacker would find interesting, but who is to say what that is? The guidelines basicly say that what's on topic is anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

Again, what I think is that the "good hacker" is us. We shouldn't nitpick topics. We should take care to have good discussions. We consider technology important and relevant, so we discuss it. Same for everything.

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

#429

Post by DoreenMichele »

6510 wrote: post #427
DoreenMichele wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I initially downvoted this. I've reversed that and decided to reply. HN is bigger than it used to be which has helped introduce an Eternal September effect, but HN is the funnel for YC. You need an HN handle to apply to YC. For people interested in starting a business and applying to YC, there is potentially millions of dollars at stake. Especially in the beginning when it was smaller, your comments here were used to…

> your comments here were used to help them evaluate your application [...] Lots of latecomers seem oblivious to that function and think it's just a silly discussion forum. I see, it [apparently] may still have serious implications. I still consider a serious discussion to be one where you can be right and I can be wrong - politely. It is then up to you to enlighten. Next round you get to be wrong and ill be there to…

I still consider a serious discussion to be one where you can be right and I can be wrong - politely. It is then up to you to enlighten. Next round you get to be wrong and ill be there to point it out.

That still goes on here. It just is a smaller percentage of the discussion than it was when I originally joined in 2009. It's less obvious, but still possible to find that here.

There are more people here who don't participate that way, so you need to be a bit more careful about whom you try to engage that way to avoid having it go pointlessly sideways.

It's harder to stick your neck out about such things than it used to be and I don't know how to remedy that. It used to be much more possible to have a vigorous debate and have both sides remain civil in a way I have never seen anywhere else.

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

#430

Post by dmos62 »

tpmx wrote: post #153
wvenable wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individual comments are rarely flagged for anything other than outright spam or harassment. I browse with "show dead" turned on. I have seen entire heated topics killed but that kills both sides of the argument equally. What value is a 500-comment talk-over-each-other argument, fundamentally about politics even if on-topic, on this site? I doesn't seem like something we should waste time on.

The fallacy here: when you're only exposed to stuff that everyone agrees about, you're missing out.

That's a weak statement, because it's easy to demonstrate that popular opinion can be misguided.
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