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Ask HN: Downvote. What are you saying to the other guy when you downvote?
I frankly have tried to wrap my head around the concept, but I just don't get it. I don't remember ever downvoting unless it was an accident. I find it quite similar to throwing stones at someone and hiding when you do it.
Assuming a comment is not insulting, what do you mean to say about yourself and the other guy/gal when you downvote?
Would you still downvote if the other person would know you did?
Thank you for responding.
- wglb 16y agoThe point of comments is to add something thoughtful to a discussion that hasn't already been added. Thus, if there is a comment that is not contributing, a downvote is feedback about that comments contribution, relevance, or politeness.
- confuzatron 16y agoUpvoting: done when you think the comment deserves more votes that it has. Downvoting: done when you think the comment deserves fewer votes than it has. Asking HN About Downvoting, in A Tone That Suggests Such Negativity is Incomprehensible to Someone of Your Elevated Consciousness: done when you are miffed about being downvoted (although you will deny this vehemently) :)
- tokenadult 16y agoSometimes what I'm saying is that I would prefer not to have more metadiscussion about downvotes, but would rather discuss interesting technology trends or science news that satisfies one's intellectual curiosity. I take every downvote I receive seriously and try to figure out how to make my comments better. New submissions can't be downvoted, so for those I can only learn from which ones (mine or other people's) get the most upvotes. It's not a big deal. It's best to come to HN without a lot of ego invested in karma. Just try your best to post thoughtful comments and the karma (and especially karma average, something I still have a lot to learn about) will happen in its own time.
- frossie 16y agoNew submissions can't be downvoted, so for those I can only learn from which ones (mine or other people's) get the most upvotes. I think I have noticed there's a huge time-sensitivity on which stories "catch on". In other words, I suspect you could post the same link twelve hours apart and get a completely different number of upvotes. I speculate that this is because readership is concentrated in the PST timezone. So story lack-of-upvoting isn't quite the same learning experience as comment-downvoting.
- swolchok 16y agoFrom guidelines: Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
- rokhayakebe 16y agoI am not complaining. I really would like to understand.
- frossie 16y agoI don't down-vote for disagreement. I down-vote for comments that I think are seriously detrimental to the goal of maintaining high signal-to-noise in HN. For example, imagine a comment that just said "LOL!". Yes, I would downvote that, and it says "Please don't make empty comments like that. If you like it, upvote it, and be done with it". I also downvote for flagrant wrongness, and I mean really mean flagrant. For example say there was a post on geolocation and somebody insisted in all seriousness that the Earth is flat. I would downvote that for the obvious reason. That said, I think the general guidelines do not frown on voting for disagreement and many people do. I don't know for sure, but I suspect I downvote once for every 50 upvotes or something of that order - it's pretty rare.
- anigbrowl 16y agoI rarely downvote a comment, but when I do it's usually because of some glaring fallacy or misstatement of fact. I would be fine with votes being open to the votee or even public.