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Are you sick of being downvoted for having a different opinion?
I'm. That's one of the primary reasons why I'm still working on my startup (personalized social news site) even though the odds are stacked againts it.
Please help us create a community where people can exchange stories and opinions freely while still maintaining the quality of personalized "front page".
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- biznickman 18y agoCan you downvote people on this site?
- gaika 18y agoHere you can downvote comments if your karma is above 50. We have sliders for people so you can adjust your preference for their posts.
- Hexstream 18y ago"sliders"?... I must have missed something.
- mwerty 18y agoKarma needs to be greater than 25 or thereabouts.
- Morieris 18y agoThat seems like a good idea... I imagine it would keep out account farmers, or people using dupe accounts to vote many times.
- breily 18y agoI'm sick of submissions about downvotes.
- gaika 18y agoGreat, there are no submissions about downvotes there, because unlike here it is not a problem. Edit: whoever is downvoting this comment should check the definition of "irony"
- xlnt 18y agoMaybe you were downvoted for being hard to understand? "there"?
- gaika 18y agoEnglish is not my first language. I meant that on the social news site that I'm working on there are no posts about downvotes, because everybody is free to express their opinion with up and down votes as they wish and it doesn't hurt anybody.
- xlnt 18y agoOh. Maybe you are being downvoted for advertising your startup too much?
- gaika 18y agoMaybe. I'm trying to advertise a solution to the problem. My startup is just one possible implementation of it. Edit: Another solution would be to ask people to explain when they downvote. Please, what's wrong with THIS comment?
- xlnt 18y agoYou should probably ignore downvotes until at least -2. It could be just one random idiot and it doesn't mean anything.
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- rewind 18y agoI'm not sick of being downvoted (don't care), but I can't say the same about posts that are nothing more than advertisements for the poster's startup.
- xlnt 18y agoi'm sick of imprecise posts. the above post is not "nothing more" than an advertisement, even if you're right that that is the primary motivation.
- gaika 18y agoThank you. You are right, that is not the primary motivation for the post. I liked slashdot back in the day. Had to move on to digg, then reddit, then hacker news, because the quality of discussions was degrading. I think hacker news has a chance to be free from trolls and have high signal / noise because of narrow focus, but these personal anonymous attacks on people with downvoting them for who they are and what they think started to happen here more and more often. I think there's a general solution and would be only happy if sites like Hacker News adopt it as well.
- astine 18y agoI've always felt that the best tool for that job was active moderation. If moderators care about the quality of their 'community' they can maintain it by fairly enforcing a set of rules. I've seen cases where this worked very well.
- greendestiny 18y agoI come here to read about startups, especially community member's startups. If this post was actually a link to, or discussion of, a startup that would be great. It's not. If everyone who has something against downvotes would like to respond to this comment I'll upvote you and maybe we can get it out of our system.
- fuckymcfuckfuck 18y agoYeah I like totally don't get it... /me smears monitor with excrement
- ibsulon 18y agoI've managed to keep from being incessantly downvoted in my unpopular opinions by providing well documented arguments (logos, with an occasional appeal to ethos of sources), tying to personal credibility or experience (ethos), or providing personal experience developing an empathic response, then tying into into the main argument. (pathos -> logos, or just pathos.) The problem isn't disagreement - it's not developing ethos, pathos, or logos into the appropriate argument. The more controversial the opinion, the more that one must work to develop these three qualities, rather than depending on just one. I also work to expose the weaknesses of my own argument, admit them, but explain why they are superior to the more conventional alternative. I find that when this fails for myself, it's often because my perspective is lacking, and I need to rethink my argument. On reddit, I'll still usually find an unpopular opinion at 3 or 4 points. There's likely some downmodding done, but most people will leave it alone if it's a proper argument. (Some arguments, of course, are out of bounds. The emotional appeal is too strong. Abortion in a pro-life forum, for example. I haven't had that problem in most major forums.)
- gaika 18y agoThis is a great strategy for comments. How does it help when you want to post a story on reddit that you think is important but unfortunately is highly controversial? (Hacker News doesn't have downvote for stories for exactly this reason, thanks!) How does it help when people are downvoting you not only for your opinion but for who you are? Karma is a great tool to manage trolls and signal / noise. Unfortunately in real world it is also used to silence opponents. And it is pretty effective at that. I want to change that.
- stcredzero 18y agoIf you made downvotes more scarce, then people would only use them if they absolutely had to. Maybe they would prioritize trolls and noise? Somehow, I think we're not quite that wise.
- ibsulon 18y agoI don't tend to post stories. :) If I were looking for posts, I would likely post it in a personal blog then write my own interpretation, using effective argumentation, re-presenting the arguments targeted to a more critical audience. That is a lot of commitment, though. However, an argument can do more harm than good if it is not written for a general audience.
- mpk 18y agoI really don't care about being down or up voted. I make a comment every now and again - if people want to vote on it, fair enough. Go ahead, that's what the system is for. But please don't try to pretend this is anything other than an Internet forum. Semi-anonymous people hang out here and some of them are bound to be obnoxious. Down-votes for different opinions are par for the course. Get over it.
- chrisbroadfoot 18y agoDear god, not another personalised social news site.
- edw519 18y ago...I'm still working on my startup... Great. That's what we all should be doing. Let us know as soon as you have something to show us. I'm not sure why you're posting this before then.
- lakeeffect 18y agoYour Site Has Down Votes, I looked at it, it does.
- gaika 18y agoThe downvotes on our site serve totally different purpose. They do not censor - they cluster. They let you find people that share your values. Same with upvotes, also there's no karma to gain or lose.
- pohart 18y agoWhile I see the point of such a thing, I don't like the idea of only reading the posts of people sharing my values/ideas. I already have my values/ideas and reading them will reinforce, instead of expand, them.
- mattmaroon 18y agoI just kinda got used to it. I essentially realized that karma has no real money value anyway, and my self-esteem isn't dependent on the approval of strangers. So I just kinda comment and whatever happens happens. I really don't pay much attention to it. I have thicker skin than most though.
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