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With regards to submissions we can always flag that which isn't suited for the site. With the upcoming elections sure to contentious there will be many stories

With regards to submissions we can always flag that which isn't suited for the site. With the upcoming elections sure to contentious there will be many stories masquerading themselves but in essence they are nothing more than political attack pieces. We have already seen a few posted. They start out with an interesting headline about a technology everyone is interested in and then suddenly go straight to politics with attacks against one candidate or another without calling out the other side. As for down vote costing, all for it with a caveat. If a post is universally down voted then the cost is refunded.

Kinnard 11y ago
I think the interesting/compelling point is that there actually IS downvoting on hackernews.
- detaro 11y ago
  What is the interesting point about that? That the author didn't notice it while looking at the site, and had to be told afterwards? That some of the arguments don't work/still work? I'm not sure what you want to say (if you want to say something, and not just see what others say)
  - Kinnard 11y ago
    I think it's a significant hidden feature which affects the shape of the community and also how the rewards of making it to the first page are allocated. There's essentially a class of hn users with more power.
    - detaro 11y ago
      Submissions can't be downvoted, so entries appearing on the frontpage is not affected. (Ignoring flagging, which admittedly can have a similar effect. I don't remember what the threshold for flagging is, also 500?) EDIT: ... and of course this submission becomes an example for flags as downvotes...
      - Kinnard 11y ago
        Apparently you are correct. My bad.
Udik 11y ago
What annoys me slightly of downvotes on HN is that many users seem to simply downvote comments for the only reason that they don't agree with their content (as opposed to judging them off-topic, spam, or poorly thought/ structured). One possible solution would be to force downvoters to leave a comment explaining the reason of the downvote. The comment could then in turn be up or downvoted, putting the karma of the downvoter at stake.
detaro 11y ago
I wish flagging didn't affect ranking so much. It is still possibly to send a submission from the top spots on the second page with flags, even if it has active discussion and never gets the number of flags necessary to kill it. Flagging IMHO should be for "enough people have agreed to kill this" and not to punish controversial topics, especially since it can't be directly counteracted (vouch only works on killed submissions, not on those that are only penalized)

Kinnard 11y ago

I think the interesting/compelling point is that there actually IS downvoting on hackernews.

detaro 11y ago
What is the interesting point about that? That the author didn't notice it while looking at the site, and had to be told afterwards? That some of the arguments don't work/still work? I'm not sure what you want to say (if you want to say something, and not just see what others say)
- Kinnard 11y ago
  I think it's a significant hidden feature which affects the shape of the community and also how the rewards of making it to the first page are allocated. There's essentially a class of hn users with more power.
  - detaro 11y ago
    Submissions can't be downvoted, so entries appearing on the frontpage is not affected. (Ignoring flagging, which admittedly can have a similar effect. I don't remember what the threshold for flagging is, also 500?) EDIT: ... and of course this submission becomes an example for flags as downvotes...
    - Kinnard 11y ago
      Apparently you are correct. My bad.

Udik 11y ago

What annoys me slightly of downvotes on HN is that many users seem to simply downvote comments for the only reason that they don't agree with their content (as opposed to judging them off-topic, spam, or poorly thought/ structured). One possible solution would be to force downvoters to leave a comment explaining the reason of the downvote. The comment could then in turn be up or downvoted, putting the karma of the downvoter at stake.

detaro 11y ago

I wish flagging didn't affect ranking so much. It is still possibly to send a submission from the top spots on the second page with flags, even if it has active discussion and never gets the number of flags necessary to kill it. Flagging IMHO should be for "enough people have agreed to kill this" and not to punish controversial topics, especially since it can't be directly counteracted (vouch only works on killed submissions, not on those that are only penalized)