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I think downvoting is supposed to be used to mark spam/offtopic etc - Things that don't add to the conversation or contribute anything interesting. Using downv
by axod 17y ago
I think downvoting is supposed to be used to mark spam/offtopic etc - Things that don't add to the conversation or contribute anything interesting.
Using downvoting to disagree with the comment isn't the intention afaik.
- elblanco 17y agoI wholeheartedly disagree: 1) Spam should be flagged not downvoted. 2) On/Offtopic is about as subjective as you can get. Some of the most interesting comments I've seen on HN were the ones that were non-obviously related to the post or were meta-comments, or even better, when an interesting conversation ran wild and flowed from topic to topic to topic. 3) Downvoting is being used more and more and more for uncommented disagreement. Don't believe me? Visit any thread here and see which posts are sitting at <=0 karma. I guarantee the vast vast majority of them will be 1) Humorous and on-topic (even if the humor is bad). 2) On topic but non-specifically disagreed with by somebody (who? nobody knows since no comments were probably provided).
- jodrellblank 17y agoHow does your claim that any given comment was downvoted for disagreement backup your wider claim that downvoted comments were downvoted for disagreement? That's circular. > 1) Spam should be flagged not downvoted. Agree. > 2) On/Offtopic is about as subjective as you can get Roughly agree, except there are official guidelines from the HN HQ so it isn't completely subjective. > 3) Downvoting is being used more and more and more for uncommented disagreement. Maybe, but even if so I don't see it being a problem. HN isn't turning into an echo chamber because of it, HN has always been a self selected echo chamber, as are all self selected groups of people who choose to belong to a group focused on some area(s) of interest. > Don't believe me? Don't understand you.
- elblanco 17y ago> Roughly agree, except there are official guidelines from the HN HQ so it isn't completely subjective. This is true, but even within the guidelines, there is considerable room for topics. Some people seem to want to constrain that further to some smaller set of topics they are personally interested in by using the downvote. > Maybe, but even if so I don't see it being a problem. HN isn't turning into an echo chamber because of it, HN has always been a self selected echo chamber, as are all self selected groups of people who choose to belong to a group focused on some area(s) of interest. Self-selected, narrowly focused? Sure. But an echo chamber is not what we want, they are by definition, undesirable. > Don't understand you. I wasn't clear I guess. My point being is that posts that are off-topic and generally disagreeable are not the ones being downvoted because by and large we tend not to have those too much on HN. The ones that are being downvoted are the ones that are, on topic, but have some other characteristic that the downvote patrol doesn't want to see, such as humor or a dissenting or contradictory voice.
- chrischen 17y agoIt may not be intended, but I'm pretty sure it's what it's used for. Plus intuitively, it's as if it is put there for that purpose, since there is also a "flag" action which seems more suited for marking spam/off-topic already.
- bmj 17y agoI agree. I've always thought the intention here was to use comments to disagree, and reserve down-voting for really poor comments that may not be constructive to the conversation. As another poster pointed out, getting down-voted does cause me re-think my comment, but I'd rather know why someone down-voted me. Personally, I tend to avoid down-voting, even for egregious comments.
- elblanco 17y agoPersonally, getting downvoted tends to make me rethink wanting to even bother to comment.
- chrischen 17y agoExactly. It discourages participation through negative feedback. If you want to condition people to do a certain thing, like post thoughtful comments, then I think that's best achieved solely through positive reinforcement.
- jm4 17y agoI don't have any supporting evidence, but it seems like the downvote has been increasingly used to disagree over the past several months.