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meta about hn's comment systems, but: why else would you ban low-karma accounts from downvoting? It seems like upvote-only systems make for better comment sort
by PostOnce 9y ago
meta about hn's comment systems, but:
why else would you ban low-karma accounts from downvoting? It seems like upvote-only systems make for better comment sorting, thus why downvoting is not even allowed by low karma accounts.
Still, trolls and total irrelevance need to be policed to keep the quality of discussion high, so high karma users will police the trolls and irrelevant posters, rather than down-sorting things they disagree with, but which contribute to the discussion? I thought I had read this somewhere on here, that it's all about relevance and inciting conversation, rather than sort-by-mob-rule and prevailing opinion?
- spraak 9y agoI think the above poster is being sarcastic...
- jholman 9y agoThe Guidelines don't support any of this theorizing. Reddit's "reddiquette" has a rule like the one you suggest for HN. I think the fact that this rule has failed to show up in the published Guidelines, after a decade or so, even through Guidelines edits, is (weak) evidence that HN does not use Reddit's rule. As far as I can tell, downvotes are for whatever you want them to be for. I mean, I mostly only use my downvotes according to the rule you propose. But I think your claim that this is the "meaning" of downvotes is unsupported by evidence. And, from the Guidelines: Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. As such, one thing I do downvote for: unconstructive complaining about downvotes.