8 ms·

I wish the downvote button was two step (while upvote as is) where a user had to select from things like off topic, spam, etc. Maybe a decoy disagree too for le

I wish the downvote button was two step (while upvote as is) where a user had to select from things like off topic, spam, etc. Maybe a decoy disagree too for letting the new user downvote but not counting it.

qume 9y ago
Definitely. Some of the most valuable posts are downvoted. Thats what makes them so valuable - sometimes the conventional wisdom is so wrong that when someone with specialist knowledge chimes in people reject it. Try posting here about anything related to nutrition and the health risks of eating meat...
nickbarnwell 9y ago
Slashdot meta-moderation was fantastic for this. I'm curious why it never made an appearance elsewhere - it really was a great idea.
- fnordsensei 9y ago
  Could you elaborate on how it works/worked? Or is it as suggested above: a downvote + a reason?
  - snowwrestler 9y ago
    Well there are actually two ideas in the parent comment. On Slashdot, upvotes and downvotes each came with a label. So upvote wasn't just an up-arrow, it was more like "+1, Helpful" or "+1, Funny". And downvotes weren't just a down arrow, the options were like "-1, Off Topic" or "-1, Abusive". Don't hold me to the actual labels, but you get the idea. There was also a cap; each post could only go so far down (can't remember) or up (pretty sure that was 5). Overall, this system was called moderation. There was also meta-moderation, where people had to review someone else's votes up or down, and verify them. This way, people who were making bad votes could get caught by the community. The ability to moderate or meta-moderate was hooked into the karma score, but I can't remember exactly how. Meta-moderation was like a chore you had to do sometimes to maintain the right to moderate, as I recall. I'm sure there is a write-up somewhere that could do a better job than my off-teh-cuff remembering.
    - prawn 9y ago
      The labels were insightful, interesting, informative, funny, overrated, underrated, redundant, troll, flamebait, offtopic, etc. Comments maxed out at +5. You could set a threshold so you'd only see +2 and higher, etc. At some point, you could adjust your personal measure for the categories of positive or negative moderation. e.g., threads turned into boring rushes to post memes for +1 Funny, so at one point I made Funny worth zero and Insightful worth +2. It was an interesting way to influence how a thread appeared for you. But around that time, I lost interest in the site and quit it for HN. You couldn't vote all the time (like on HN), but you periodically received 5 mod points to use, so you would tend to pick the most deserving to boost or demote. From memory, periodically, you might get meta-moderation points. Say, 10 chances to assess whether a post's moderation was fair or unfair. It was half-chore, half-interesting so it was often a happy distraction. More info for those with too much time on their hands: https://slashdot.org/moderation.shtml https://slashdot.org/faq/mod-metamod.shtml
      - fnordsensei 9y ago
        Interesting, thank you both. I read up on online reputation systems a while back while consulting on a project, and it's been an interest since. This is a worthwhile video to watch on the subject if interested: http://buildingreputation.com/writings/2010/07/5_reputation_missteps_video_go.html http://buildingreputation.com/writings/2010/07/5_reputation_...
avinassh 9y ago
This feature exists in lobste.rs [0] and it is effective for making people think twice before downvoting anything. Atleast for me and I seem to think to again, if I want to downvote anything or not [0] - https://i.imgur.com/s0EpZOH.png https://i.imgur.com/s0EpZOH.png
laumars 9y ago
Im a firm believer that one shouldn't be allowed to downvote without leaving a comment. In instances like spam or trolling we have the 'flag' option, which if abused should then cost people karma and/or the privilege of moderation. I say this because I often get downvoted because people don't understand my point (sometimes due to my own fault badly explaining myself, sometimes the readers fault for skimming my post) and it's not until several downvoted before someone finally chimes in an clarifies why. Negative rep get so badly abused on this site and the most frustrating thing about it all is whenever the topic gets raised you get downvoted to hell. There is also a disappointing trend to kneejerk downvote any comment that disagrees with any of the "famous" (for want a better description) names on HN simply because member "xyz" must be wrong if they're arguing with the famed member "abc"; regardless of whatever point xyz had made. It's daft hero worshipping. Then there's the amount of times people can get down voted on popular threads just because they dared express and unpopular opinion. Overall I genuinely think the quality of comments on this site has dropped over the years and I think it's directly related to the increase in members reaching the threshold to negative moderate. It gets harder to have an adult conversation when half the time people are kneejerk downvoting rather than posting a rebuttal or simply asking for clarification on why an opinion was formed to begin with. It's gotten to the point that I'm sure many people now question whether they can be bothered with the potential backlash or whether they're better off just keeping quiet. Which results in some tropes (for want a better description) not getting peer reviewed or debunked because it's such a popular piece of misinformation that the correction isn't worth the backlash. Lastly, I get sick of people saying we shouldn't take negative rep personally. It's someone actively saying "I don't agree with you but I'm not going to state why." There is no other response to that other than frustration.
- maaaats 9y ago
  > Im a firm believer that one shouldn't be allowed to downvote without leaving a comment. I downvoted because I disagree with you.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- 9y ago
rimliu 9y ago
Then please abolish the upvote too. Because it too most often means "I agree". What you propose is a bad solution because it breaks symmetry. If people are upvoting because they agree (and if you agree you tend to think about the comment like it brings value), they should be able to downvote because they disagree. Overzealous moderation and self-censorship already makes HN too sterile place to be cozy. And similar to too sterile environments in real life it has a potential to weakening your immune system and cause auto-immune diseases.

qume 9y ago

Definitely. Some of the most valuable posts are downvoted. Thats what makes them so valuable - sometimes the conventional wisdom is so wrong that when someone with specialist knowledge chimes in people reject it. Try posting here about anything related to nutrition and the health risks of eating meat...

nickbarnwell 9y ago

Slashdot meta-moderation was fantastic for this. I'm curious why it never made an appearance elsewhere - it really was a great idea.

fnordsensei 9y ago
Could you elaborate on how it works/worked? Or is it as suggested above: a downvote + a reason?
- snowwrestler 9y ago
  Well there are actually two ideas in the parent comment. On Slashdot, upvotes and downvotes each came with a label. So upvote wasn't just an up-arrow, it was more like "+1, Helpful" or "+1, Funny". And downvotes weren't just a down arrow, the options were like "-1, Off Topic" or "-1, Abusive". Don't hold me to the actual labels, but you get the idea. There was also a cap; each post could only go so far down (can't remember) or up (pretty sure that was 5). Overall, this system was called moderation. There was also meta-moderation, where people had to review someone else's votes up or down, and verify them. This way, people who were making bad votes could get caught by the community. The ability to moderate or meta-moderate was hooked into the karma score, but I can't remember exactly how. Meta-moderation was like a chore you had to do sometimes to maintain the right to moderate, as I recall. I'm sure there is a write-up somewhere that could do a better job than my off-teh-cuff remembering.
  - prawn 9y ago
    The labels were insightful, interesting, informative, funny, overrated, underrated, redundant, troll, flamebait, offtopic, etc. Comments maxed out at +5. You could set a threshold so you'd only see +2 and higher, etc. At some point, you could adjust your personal measure for the categories of positive or negative moderation. e.g., threads turned into boring rushes to post memes for +1 Funny, so at one point I made Funny worth zero and Insightful worth +2. It was an interesting way to influence how a thread appeared for you. But around that time, I lost interest in the site and quit it for HN. You couldn't vote all the time (like on HN), but you periodically received 5 mod points to use, so you would tend to pick the most deserving to boost or demote. From memory, periodically, you might get meta-moderation points. Say, 10 chances to assess whether a post's moderation was fair or unfair. It was half-chore, half-interesting so it was often a happy distraction. More info for those with too much time on their hands: https://slashdot.org/moderation.shtml https://slashdot.org/faq/mod-metamod.shtml
    - fnordsensei 9y ago
      Interesting, thank you both. I read up on online reputation systems a while back while consulting on a project, and it's been an interest since. This is a worthwhile video to watch on the subject if interested: http://buildingreputation.com/writings/2010/07/5_reputation_missteps_video_go.html http://buildingreputation.com/writings/2010/07/5_reputation_...

avinassh 9y ago

This feature exists in lobste.rs [0] and it is effective for making people think twice before downvoting anything. Atleast for me and I seem to think to again, if I want to downvote anything or not [0] - https://i.imgur.com/s0EpZOH.png https://i.imgur.com/s0EpZOH.png

laumars 9y ago

Im a firm believer that one shouldn't be allowed to downvote without leaving a comment. In instances like spam or trolling we have the 'flag' option, which if abused should then cost people karma and/or the privilege of moderation. I say this because I often get downvoted because people don't understand my point (sometimes due to my own fault badly explaining myself, sometimes the readers fault for skimming my post) and it's not until several downvoted before someone finally chimes in an clarifies why. Negative rep get so badly abused on this site and the most frustrating thing about it all is whenever the topic gets raised you get downvoted to hell. There is also a disappointing trend to kneejerk downvote any comment that disagrees with any of the "famous" (for want a better description) names on HN simply because member "xyz" must be wrong if they're arguing with the famed member "abc"; regardless of whatever point xyz had made. It's daft hero worshipping. Then there's the amount of times people can get down voted on popular threads just because they dared express and unpopular opinion. Overall I genuinely think the quality of comments on this site has dropped over the years and I think it's directly related to the increase in members reaching the threshold to negative moderate. It gets harder to have an adult conversation when half the time people are kneejerk downvoting rather than posting a rebuttal or simply asking for clarification on why an opinion was formed to begin with. It's gotten to the point that I'm sure many people now question whether they can be bothered with the potential backlash or whether they're better off just keeping quiet. Which results in some tropes (for want a better description) not getting peer reviewed or debunked because it's such a popular piece of misinformation that the correction isn't worth the backlash. Lastly, I get sick of people saying we shouldn't take negative rep personally. It's someone actively saying "I don't agree with you but I'm not going to state why." There is no other response to that other than frustration.

maaaats 9y ago
> Im a firm believer that one shouldn't be allowed to downvote without leaving a comment. I downvoted because I disagree with you.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
9y ago

rimliu 9y ago

Then please abolish the upvote too. Because it too most often means "I agree". What you propose is a bad solution because it breaks symmetry. If people are upvoting because they agree (and if you agree you tend to think about the comment like it brings value), they should be able to downvote because they disagree. Overzealous moderation and self-censorship already makes HN too sterile place to be cozy. And similar to too sterile environments in real life it has a potential to weakening your immune system and cause auto-immune diseases.