Live data from Hacker News

Facebook rolls out trial of 'dislike' button for downvoting comments

theguardian.com

1–10 of 23 posts

Re: Facebook rolls out trial of 'dislike' button for downvoting comments

#4

Surely there's enough proof out there at this point that ranked comments do nothing to improve discussion, and that downvoting is always used as a "I disagree" button?

Are there any popular systems in which there are separate downvotes for "I disagree" and "I think this is a low-quality, inappropriate, or abusive comment"? Or separate upvotes for "I agree" and "I think this is a useful, interesting, or high-quality comment"?

Re: Facebook rolls out trial of 'dislike' button for downvoting comments

#5
post #4

Surely there's enough proof out there at this point that ranked comments do nothing to improve discussion, and that downvoting is always used as a "I disagree" button?

Are there any popular systems in which there are separate downvotes for "I disagree" and "I think this is a low-quality, inappropriate, or abusive comment"? Or separate upvotes for "I agree" and "I think this is a useful, interesting, or high-quality comment"?

Many systems have a flag option; although that is usually reserved for abusive or blatant spam comments.

Re: Facebook rolls out trial of 'dislike' button for downvoting comments

#7
post #4

Surely there's enough proof out there at this point that ranked comments do nothing to improve discussion, and that downvoting is always used as a "I disagree" button?

Are there any popular systems in which there are separate downvotes for "I disagree" and "I think this is a low-quality, inappropriate, or abusive comment"? Or separate upvotes for "I agree" and "I think this is a useful, interesting, or high-quality comment"?

Slashdot's moderation system (in theory) is excellent. It is more than a + / - button so I don't see it working in a faster-paced environment like facebook comments. I think the happy, sad, angry, and heart emoji-rating system they use now is probably already maxing out the amount of time a user will spend on rating something.

Re: Facebook rolls out trial of 'dislike' button for downvoting comments

#9
Disheartening to see that Facebook is unabashedly aping the cornerstones of various sites (reddit) and apps (Snap).

That said, a downvote, or a "dislike" button, is almost always a double-edged sword - although it can be used to tune out hateful comments, it can also turn potentially meaningful comment sections into echo chambers extremely fast.

I do not see this turning out well.

Post reply on HN