4 ms·

An up-vote is a bit different from a down-vote. It's a way of saying "I agree. Were I to post a comment, it would be similar to yours. In fact, you said it b

by eplanit 17y ago

An up-vote is a bit different from a down-vote. It's a way of saying "I agree. Were I to post a comment, it would be similar to yours. In fact, you said it better". See, there isn't much to add to an up-vote, because it is agreement. However, a down-vote is rebuttal. However, when no actual rebuttal is given, there is no meaningful conversation happening. It's just an anonymous rejection. I think that to be meaningful, a down-vote should _require_ some explanation as to why. And, the 'rule' should be that simply disagreeing is insufficient rationale to down-vote. You must state why. Absent this kind of 'rule', I worry that HN encourages group-think. It's already a kind of psychological school yard, I fear. One gains "cred" by earning points. Ideally, these are earned by meaningful contributions and commentary. To avoid these anonymous down-votes, however, posters might very well be adding comments that seem consistent with the rest of the group, instead of what might be regarding as opposed to that of the majority. The idea of charging would not be a good solution, at all. That would have a worse kind of school yard effect -- a nursery school effect, in fact. That would say "it's free to agree, but to if you disagree with somebody, you have to pay to express your disagreement." If this is to be a forum of ideas, then make it so. Anonymous/un-qualified nay-saying does not contribute that.

Mz 17y ago
An up-vote is a bit different from a down-vote. It's a way of saying "I agree. Were I to post a comment, it would be similar to yours. In fact, you said it better". See, there isn't much to add to an up-vote, because it is agreement. However, a down-vote is rebuttal. However, when no actual rebuttal is given, there is no meaningful conversation happening. It's just an anonymous rejection. I think that to be meaningful, a down-vote should _require_ some explanation as to why. And, the 'rule' should be that simply disagreeing is insufficient rationale to down-vote. You must state why. The problem with your suggestion is that it would actively encourage fighting and discourage more agreeable discourse: Upvote all you like without comment but you must comment when downvoting. Yes, a forum of ideas needs to have a certain tolerance for different points of view and opinions and for the friction involved in expressing those differences. But it's really quite a tricky thing to foster an environment where sharing different points of view is constructive and additive rather than merely socially destructive and a promotion of in-fighting, promotion of polarized "camps" within the community, etc. I am someone who has, at times, asked why I got downvoted because I wanted to understand what the problem was with my remark. Sometimes, that turned out to be a constructive exercise. But requiring people to state their criticism/reasons for nay-saying is highly unlikely to be constructive or improve the atmosphere here. It will most likely just promote hurt feelings, feuds and so on.
- marshallp 17y ago
  The infighting you fear is more a problem when most users are teenagers or just unthoughtful
  - Mz 17y ago
    My experience has been that the majority of human communication is about pecking order, saving face, protecting one's ego and other types of "social" motivations. (There is likely data out there which backs up my view, but I wouldn't have a citation off the top of my head.) If that weren't true, I doubt you would see so much discussion and criticism on HN about the voting system, how things get on the front page, etc. So call me cynical if you want, but if your observation is true, than the vast majority of people are simply "unthoughtful" the vast majority of the time. (Which probably is true in some sense, unfortunately.) (Ironically, I accidentally upvoted your comment and can't undo it. Perhaps bad form to mention it, but it seems funny somehow, given the context of the discussion.)

by eplanit 17y ago

Mz 17y ago

An up-vote is a bit different from a down-vote. It's a way of saying "I agree. Were I to post a comment, it would be similar to yours. In fact, you said it better". See, there isn't much to add to an up-vote, because it is agreement. However, a down-vote is rebuttal. However, when no actual rebuttal is given, there is no meaningful conversation happening. It's just an anonymous rejection. I think that to be meaningful, a down-vote should _require_ some explanation as to why. And, the 'rule' should be that simply disagreeing is insufficient rationale to down-vote. You must state why. The problem with your suggestion is that it would actively encourage fighting and discourage more agreeable discourse: Upvote all you like without comment but you must comment when downvoting. Yes, a forum of ideas needs to have a certain tolerance for different points of view and opinions and for the friction involved in expressing those differences. But it's really quite a tricky thing to foster an environment where sharing different points of view is constructive and additive rather than merely socially destructive and a promotion of in-fighting, promotion of polarized "camps" within the community, etc. I am someone who has, at times, asked why I got downvoted because I wanted to understand what the problem was with my remark. Sometimes, that turned out to be a constructive exercise. But requiring people to state their criticism/reasons for nay-saying is highly unlikely to be constructive or improve the atmosphere here. It will most likely just promote hurt feelings, feuds and so on.

marshallp 17y ago
The infighting you fear is more a problem when most users are teenagers or just unthoughtful
- Mz 17y ago
  My experience has been that the majority of human communication is about pecking order, saving face, protecting one's ego and other types of "social" motivations. (There is likely data out there which backs up my view, but I wouldn't have a citation off the top of my head.) If that weren't true, I doubt you would see so much discussion and criticism on HN about the voting system, how things get on the front page, etc. So call me cynical if you want, but if your observation is true, than the vast majority of people are simply "unthoughtful" the vast majority of the time. (Which probably is true in some sense, unfortunately.) (Ironically, I accidentally upvoted your comment and can't undo it. Perhaps bad form to mention it, but it seems funny somehow, given the context of the discussion.)