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Agreed 100% for Facebook or even Hacker News, however on GitHub it would be really useful for voting. If you ask "Should we add this feature?", it's hard to un

Agreed 100% for Facebook or even Hacker News, however on GitHub it would be really useful for voting. If you ask "Should we add this feature?", it's hard to understand what favorites mean if you don't have an anchor. Does 10 thumbs-up mean unanimous support, or is it just a small minority? It'd be nice to say "Oh, 10 upvotes... but there's 90 downvotes, so we won't do it." FB and Hacker News are a marketplace of relatively-inconsequential ideas and thoughts. However, changes discussed on GitHub Issues can potentially have an impact on your company and livelihood.

hayksaakian 11y ago
on facebook they say "like if you want A and share if you want B" obviously this is a 'viral marketing' ploy, but something similar would be simple for github just write: thumbs up if you want A smile if you want B problem solved
- gkoberger 11y ago
  Or they could just have a thumbs-down button, and expect a higher level of discourse than Facebook.
  - jdoliner 11y ago
    Or they could have trigger warnings for thumbs downs like tumblr. Best of all worlds.
rtpg 11y ago
Internally when voting (informally) on things we do +1, +0, -0, and -1. Super helpful to be able to ask for everyone's opinion while they can also express the strength of their opinion. Feel like that would be very useful
- gkoberger 11y ago
  For what it's worth, the "thumbs down" emoji is named ":-1:".
- goldenkey 11y ago
  +0 and -0 are equal..
  - lccarrasco 11y ago
    I believe the implied meaning is: +0 -> support from the sidelines (like for a change that doesn't directly affect you)/something that's not urgent but would be nice -0 -> disagree from the sidelines/disagree with the solution but can't think of a better one
    - alecdbrooks 11y ago
      I would enjoy it if they used +ε and -ε for that, although +0 and -0 is probably clearer.
      - rtpg 11y ago
        like that idea! Dunno how many people have epsilon easily accessible on their keyboards though.
  - inopinatus 11y ago
    Arithmetically true, but they have different IEEE 754 floating point representations. Also, my inner mathematician understands that function limits can tend towards zero from above, or from below. Zero ain't always just a big fat zero.
  - geofft 11y ago
    Those terms for code-review voting are (almost certainly) from Apache, which treats them differently. From http://www.apache.org/foundation/voting.html http://www.apache.org/foundation/voting.html : +0: 'I don't feel strongly about it, but I'm okay with this.' -0: 'I won't get in the way, but I'd rather we didn't do this.' (These votes are strings, not numbers, though they closely resemble numbers. See also the existence of a "++1" vote.)
- scatters 11y ago
  C++ standardization votes on a 5-point scale: Strong For, For, Neutral, Against, Strong Against. I think it's important to be able to express the lack of an opinion, although I guess you could do that on a 4-point scale by abstaining.
  - new_hackers 11y ago
    I've often wondered why the "two thumbs up" isn't really used anywhere that I've seen. It is a logical progression that gives more precision to the reaction.
mrharrison 11y ago
Commenting should be how people down vote. You should have to explain why it's not a good idea. Then if others agree with you, your comment will get up voted. Just as my comment is a downvote of github's downvote.
- Jormundir 11y ago
  I agree with how you want to conduct the PR or RFC process, where it's annoying if people are being negative without providing an alternative. I do however agree with the parent where there are plenty of times when a simple yes/no vote is what you really want. The comments are there for people to provide alternatives still, removing the -1 would just be removing flexibility for a very common case.
  - joepie91_ 11y ago
    Then such a vote should be opt-in - that is, it should only be possible on posts where the writer has explicitly chosen to make this a possibility. That would solve the issue.
    - throwaway160303 11y ago
      While adding another piece of state and another UI control to an interface that, AIUI, did not require any changes to support this feature, which would have delayed shipping and getting this functionality into the hands of their end-users. But making an opt-in, allow-negative-feedback control is not feedback I think they'd be wise to listen to. Users can edit issues. I'm finding it exhausting just to think through the implications of either allowing editing of the flag, or deciding that users have to get it right the first time. I can't imagine I'd find it easier to use - in fact I am sure I would be intimidated, plain and simple, by the fear of who-knows-what happening if I did the wrong thing. (...but then, that's the most git-like thing I can imagine doing! something-like-a-VCS that you can build entire new companies' worth of brand-new development practices around and still be utterly impenetrable without first unlearning 30 years of perfectly functional version-control experience and collective wisdom. I can't express how glad I am that I don't make things for developers. Truth is, most user bases are a joy to work with. Developers... insist on dysfunction, it's non-negotiable. I think it's part of the whole, "we still don't know how to do good software engineering" schtick. It wouldn't matter if it were a solved problem to the point of a mathematical proof, nobody would allow it anywhere near their mysterious uncharted edge-blurring code artisanship. We really, really suck, both professionally, and at being adults. For the most part, anyway.)
joeyespo 11y ago
Sounds like a pre-optimization. You can get the same level of information with two comments and vote exclusively with +1's, but without the general negative aspects of what's mentioned above.
- yawaramin 11y ago
  Right, if you're asking every single issue poster ever to remember to post two comments specifically for voting, versus just posting their issue itself.
  - joeyespo 11y ago
    Not every issue needs an up/down vote. But with the addition of -1, all issues and _all comments_ on those feature requests now have one. Which takes us back to the negative consequences outlined in this thread.
cpuguy83 11y ago
But the reality is, on larger projects voting doesn't help, won't work, etc. I guess for the 90% it's ok. It'd be nice to be able to turn off.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
anantzoid 11y ago
Also, it helps in taking the community point of view. Right now, if a newbie submits a PR, one of the project maintainer might just diss him and claim his PR to be irrelevant. But if there are already some 10 likes, the latter might give a second thought and might look at it from a different perspective.
nv-vn 11y ago
Maybe it would be better to make real user polls then? Or how about just making the downvote optional when creating the issue/PR? I think in general, down voting serves more bad than good on nearly any medium.

hayksaakian 11y ago

on facebook they say "like if you want A and share if you want B" obviously this is a 'viral marketing' ploy, but something similar would be simple for github just write: thumbs up if you want A smile if you want B problem solved

gkoberger 11y ago
Or they could just have a thumbs-down button, and expect a higher level of discourse than Facebook.
- jdoliner 11y ago
  Or they could have trigger warnings for thumbs downs like tumblr. Best of all worlds.

rtpg 11y ago

Internally when voting (informally) on things we do +1, +0, -0, and -1. Super helpful to be able to ask for everyone's opinion while they can also express the strength of their opinion. Feel like that would be very useful

gkoberger 11y ago
For what it's worth, the "thumbs down" emoji is named ":-1:".
goldenkey 11y ago
+0 and -0 are equal..
- lccarrasco 11y ago
  I believe the implied meaning is: +0 -> support from the sidelines (like for a change that doesn't directly affect you)/something that's not urgent but would be nice -0 -> disagree from the sidelines/disagree with the solution but can't think of a better one
  - alecdbrooks 11y ago
    I would enjoy it if they used +ε and -ε for that, although +0 and -0 is probably clearer.
    - rtpg 11y ago
      like that idea! Dunno how many people have epsilon easily accessible on their keyboards though.
- inopinatus 11y ago
  Arithmetically true, but they have different IEEE 754 floating point representations. Also, my inner mathematician understands that function limits can tend towards zero from above, or from below. Zero ain't always just a big fat zero.
- geofft 11y ago
  Those terms for code-review voting are (almost certainly) from Apache, which treats them differently. From http://www.apache.org/foundation/voting.html http://www.apache.org/foundation/voting.html : +0: 'I don't feel strongly about it, but I'm okay with this.' -0: 'I won't get in the way, but I'd rather we didn't do this.' (These votes are strings, not numbers, though they closely resemble numbers. See also the existence of a "++1" vote.)
scatters 11y ago
C++ standardization votes on a 5-point scale: Strong For, For, Neutral, Against, Strong Against. I think it's important to be able to express the lack of an opinion, although I guess you could do that on a 4-point scale by abstaining.
- new_hackers 11y ago
  I've often wondered why the "two thumbs up" isn't really used anywhere that I've seen. It is a logical progression that gives more precision to the reaction.

mrharrison 11y ago

Commenting should be how people down vote. You should have to explain why it's not a good idea. Then if others agree with you, your comment will get up voted. Just as my comment is a downvote of github's downvote.

Jormundir 11y ago
I agree with how you want to conduct the PR or RFC process, where it's annoying if people are being negative without providing an alternative. I do however agree with the parent where there are plenty of times when a simple yes/no vote is what you really want. The comments are there for people to provide alternatives still, removing the -1 would just be removing flexibility for a very common case.
- joepie91_ 11y ago
  Then such a vote should be opt-in - that is, it should only be possible on posts where the writer has explicitly chosen to make this a possibility. That would solve the issue.
  - throwaway160303 11y ago
    While adding another piece of state and another UI control to an interface that, AIUI, did not require any changes to support this feature, which would have delayed shipping and getting this functionality into the hands of their end-users. But making an opt-in, allow-negative-feedback control is not feedback I think they'd be wise to listen to. Users can edit issues. I'm finding it exhausting just to think through the implications of either allowing editing of the flag, or deciding that users have to get it right the first time. I can't imagine I'd find it easier to use - in fact I am sure I would be intimidated, plain and simple, by the fear of who-knows-what happening if I did the wrong thing. (...but then, that's the most git-like thing I can imagine doing! something-like-a-VCS that you can build entire new companies' worth of brand-new development practices around and still be utterly impenetrable without first unlearning 30 years of perfectly functional version-control experience and collective wisdom. I can't express how glad I am that I don't make things for developers. Truth is, most user bases are a joy to work with. Developers... insist on dysfunction, it's non-negotiable. I think it's part of the whole, "we still don't know how to do good software engineering" schtick. It wouldn't matter if it were a solved problem to the point of a mathematical proof, nobody would allow it anywhere near their mysterious uncharted edge-blurring code artisanship. We really, really suck, both professionally, and at being adults. For the most part, anyway.)

joeyespo 11y ago

Sounds like a pre-optimization. You can get the same level of information with two comments and vote exclusively with +1's, but without the general negative aspects of what's mentioned above.

yawaramin 11y ago
Right, if you're asking every single issue poster ever to remember to post two comments specifically for voting, versus just posting their issue itself.
- joeyespo 11y ago
  Not every issue needs an up/down vote. But with the addition of -1, all issues and _all comments_ on those feature requests now have one. Which takes us back to the negative consequences outlined in this thread.

cpuguy83 11y ago

But the reality is, on larger projects voting doesn't help, won't work, etc. I guess for the 90% it's ok. It'd be nice to be able to turn off.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

anantzoid 11y ago

Also, it helps in taking the community point of view. Right now, if a newbie submits a PR, one of the project maintainer might just diss him and claim his PR to be irrelevant. But if there are already some 10 likes, the latter might give a second thought and might look at it from a different perspective.

nv-vn 11y ago

Maybe it would be better to make real user polls then? Or how about just making the downvote optional when creating the issue/PR? I think in general, down voting serves more bad than good on nearly any medium.