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Stack Exchange is a weird place. I've generally found their user community pretty hostile. I find the idea of giving people badges for downvoting to capture som

Stack Exchange is a weird place. I've generally found their user community pretty hostile. I find the idea of giving people badges for downvoting to capture something about their negativity.

luckylion 7y ago
Downvoting is essentially moderating, and it costs you as much as it costs the person you downvoted. That does ensure that it's not just a blunt tool for general disagreement. The whole site is about gamification of altruistic behavior. Answering questions is important, but pruning the unhelpful answers is too.
- zenexer 7y ago
  Are you sure that's accurate? When I downvote, I receive -1. When I get downvoted, I believe I receive -5--or, at least, something with greater magnitude than -1.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    They might have changed it recently, but when I was active on SO, it was -1/-1 for downvoting, 0/+10 for upvoting. The idea was, iirc, that high-rep users have typically been active quite a while, contributed a lot of value and aren't troublemakers (or moderators would have confronted them), so they are trust-worthy to not abuse downvoting (while they could afford it). Low-rep users on the other hand can't afford to abuse downvotes (and it would take ten downvotes to undo one upvote) and have every incentive to only downvote when they do believe it's a bad answer. On the topics I was active, it was also very common to explain downvotes and flags so the users can improve their questions or answers (and downvotes would typically be removed if that happened).
- dvh 7y ago
  Interesting idea. I'll write css rule that hides score and draw all comments with same color and see what will happen.
workthrowaway 7y ago
hn is weird in similar regards. you get downvoted and you have no idea who downvoted you and why...
- rmilejczz 7y ago
  As someone who has been quite active on SO for several years and is also new to HN I’ll definitely say that HN feels more hostile of an environment. Even when making an honest effort to engage in meaningful discussion you might get sent to oblivion without a single reply or any sort of guidance. It feels like I’m violating unspoken community rules and no one bothers to clue you in.
  - jandrese 7y ago
    HN is much easier to get started on. SO's permissions when you're first starting out are so restrictive that it's really hard to earn those first few points.
    - rmilejczz 7y ago
      Honestly I disagree, HN seems impossible for me to gain any traction. My karma fluctuates from 0 to 10 on a daily basis essentially, and for seemingly no reason. Example, I made a comment earlier pointing out that North Korea tends to reject outside help due to the juche methodology. That comment was at 3 points, now it sits at 0 and I really have no clue why. At this point I don’t think I’ll see an upward trend in karma growth, not that it particularly matters. On SO what you need to do is quite clear, on HN it’s (to me at least) a mystery
      - krapp 7y ago
        Stop caring about karma, upvotes and downvotes. There's nothing you can do about the HN zeitgeist, There are no guidelines for downvoting here, and complaining about downvotes will only get you downvoted further. Just accept that silent passive-aggressive censorship is part of the culture here and ignore it.
      - 7y ago

Stack Exchange is a weird place. I've generally found their user community pretty hostile. I find the idea of giving people badges for downvoting to capture something about their negativity.

luckylion 7y ago

Downvoting is essentially moderating, and it costs you as much as it costs the person you downvoted. That does ensure that it's not just a blunt tool for general disagreement. The whole site is about gamification of altruistic behavior. Answering questions is important, but pruning the unhelpful answers is too.

zenexer 7y ago
Are you sure that's accurate? When I downvote, I receive -1. When I get downvoted, I believe I receive -5--or, at least, something with greater magnitude than -1.
- luckylion 7y ago
  They might have changed it recently, but when I was active on SO, it was -1/-1 for downvoting, 0/+10 for upvoting. The idea was, iirc, that high-rep users have typically been active quite a while, contributed a lot of value and aren't troublemakers (or moderators would have confronted them), so they are trust-worthy to not abuse downvoting (while they could afford it). Low-rep users on the other hand can't afford to abuse downvotes (and it would take ten downvotes to undo one upvote) and have every incentive to only downvote when they do believe it's a bad answer. On the topics I was active, it was also very common to explain downvotes and flags so the users can improve their questions or answers (and downvotes would typically be removed if that happened).
dvh 7y ago
Interesting idea. I'll write css rule that hides score and draw all comments with same color and see what will happen.

workthrowaway 7y ago

hn is weird in similar regards. you get downvoted and you have no idea who downvoted you and why...

rmilejczz 7y ago
As someone who has been quite active on SO for several years and is also new to HN I’ll definitely say that HN feels more hostile of an environment. Even when making an honest effort to engage in meaningful discussion you might get sent to oblivion without a single reply or any sort of guidance. It feels like I’m violating unspoken community rules and no one bothers to clue you in.
- jandrese 7y ago
  HN is much easier to get started on. SO's permissions when you're first starting out are so restrictive that it's really hard to earn those first few points.
  - rmilejczz 7y ago
    Honestly I disagree, HN seems impossible for me to gain any traction. My karma fluctuates from 0 to 10 on a daily basis essentially, and for seemingly no reason. Example, I made a comment earlier pointing out that North Korea tends to reject outside help due to the juche methodology. That comment was at 3 points, now it sits at 0 and I really have no clue why. At this point I don’t think I’ll see an upward trend in karma growth, not that it particularly matters. On SO what you need to do is quite clear, on HN it’s (to me at least) a mystery
    - krapp 7y ago
      Stop caring about karma, upvotes and downvotes. There's nothing you can do about the HN zeitgeist, There are no guidelines for downvoting here, and complaining about downvotes will only get you downvoted further. Just accept that silent passive-aggressive censorship is part of the culture here and ignore it.
    - 7y ago