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Poll: Have you ever clicked the wrong upvote/downvote arrow?
Edit: I propose adding the following to HN's stylesheet:
a:hover img {opacity: .5;}
a[href*=dir\=up] {-webkit-tap-highlight-color: #8ae58a;}
a[href*=dir\=down] {-webkit-tap-highlight-color: #e58a8a;}
This will help alleviate the problem without requiring any backend coding.
Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/O3Mm7.png
- yoyar 16y agoNo, because I don't make misteaks.
- fosk 16y agoLucky you.
- uvdiv 16y agoSorry, I meant to vote "No" but accidentally clicked "Yes". Which makes my vote true -- but only if it is not true.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- TeMPOraL 16y agoOh noes, I've accidentally upvoted this poll :(. (joking ;))
- arctangent 16y agoI was going to make a similar comment :-)
- zackattack 16y agoit's a known bug. everyone hates it. suggest an appropriate solution. maybe the arrows should straddle the reply link
- chaosmachine 16y agoReddit has an appropriate solution: you can unclick the arrow.
- billswift 16y agoNot just Reddit; every site that I read that has voting, except HN, has unclick.
- kmfrk 16y agoThis is a bad solution; a voting system on a discussion site should allow people to undo their vote, but not let people change opinions on a whim. People can stand by their point or concede that they were wrong somehow. If your opinion does a 180, it's probably for the better that your - new - opinion doesn't count.
- xyzzyz 16y agoWow, what's wrong with changing opinions?
- msluyter 16y agoThe iPad and iPhone are especially dangerous when it comes to accidental downvoting. Separating or enlarging the arrows would help those of us with fat fingers.
- ronnier 16y agoYou can use my http://ihackernews.com http://ihackernews.com which works great for mobile devices.
- itsnotvalid 16y agohttp://www.icombinator.net http://www.icombinator.net can't vote, which is not as useful.
- onik69 16y agoThanks - that's very cool. I'm new here. What are some other cool sites that I can use to access this site?
- dgallagher 16y agoPossible fix: Put the up-vote graphic to the left side of a comment (e.g. where it is now), and place the down-vote graphic to the right side (spaced a little bit away from the "link"). That makes it pretty hard to accidentally press one when you mean the other. EDIT (example): http://dave-gallagher.net/pics/hnVote.gif http://dave-gallagher.net/pics/hnVote.gif
- T-hawk 16y ago> Possible fix: Put the up-vote graphic to the left side of a comment (e.g. where it is now), and place the down-vote graphic to the right side I'm seconding that suggestion. It's the minimal possible coding workload, and solves the problem instantly for all time.
- moe 16y agoSo, then the people with the fat fingers will downvote whenever they try to click the 'link'?
- pschlump 16y agoJust think - In this poll some folks may have clicked the wrong button too.
- noahc 16y agoWhile we all click the wrong arrow from time to time in the grand scheme of things it's probably a small percentage of the overall clicks. I've probably clicked two or three wrong arrows out of thousands of clicks, which makes it pretty much a non-issue.
- antirez 16y agoYes but when you really liked/disliked a comment, and for an error you click in the wrong way, it's a really bad feeling.
- noahc 16y agoSo is this a statement or an argument? I would agree it sucks, but what would the cost of pg's time be to create, test, and implement this? Other than your emotional state, I don't see a huge win here.
- user24 16y agoWhat about the comments that are on 1 point and you mean to upvote them but then misclick and they go to zero? At the early stages of discussion that kind of thing can have a huge impact.
- noahc 16y agoMy previous comment was downvoted to at least -3 and it rose up again to 1. I think that proves that with enough eyes a good comment will at least get back to 1. Most comments occur on highly trafficked posts, which means most comments should be seen by enough eyes. Again, in the grand scheme of things one up vote or down vote is relatively unimportant.
- user24 16y agoit's not about the final score the comment gets, it's about the amount of influence early in the story. edit: Also, I kicked off the downvoting when you were on 1 point, as an experiment. I wonder if the other 3 people who downvoted to get you to -3 would have done so if I hadn't initially put you at 0. Also, clearly three other people upvoted you. If I hadn't put you at 0 and then 3 others followed my lead, would you now be at +4? It makes a big difference in the perception of opinion. Simply by initially putting you at 0, I was able to make it seem as though your opinion was worth less than mine. The difference between a +8 comment and a +1 (or -3) comment is much larger than the difference between a +8 and a +4.
- antirez 16y agolike a shitload of times? Either should be harder to mis-click or there should be some way to undo.
- us 16y agoNo downvote open yet
- kloc 16y agoI don't remember ever upvoting by mistake, but sometimes I do want to save a link but not upvote. I think it will be useful if one can save a link without upvoting.
- marknutter 16y agoYes, but then I remember that it's not really a big deal, and then I move on.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- kmfrk 16y agoIt happens <1% of the time for me. It's not that big of a deal to me. Of course, something might as well be done to prevent it entirely. It's weird how I get a hover icon on what is supposed to be the void between the upvote and downvote arrows.
- jtregunna 16y agoI wonder how many people have been caught by this bug on this post alone. ;)
- fuzzythinker 16y agoYour poll may be skewed by those who don't have downvote power voting "No".
- motters 16y agoYes, but not often.
- sabat 16y agoJust now. D'oh!
- sudonim 16y agoI've never seen a down arrow (405 karma as of this writing). I've been imagining it would look just like the up arrow except upside down? My mouse precision is superior, so I will only be accidentally clicking the down arrow when I'm on my CR-48.
- Bossman 16y agoWow. 405 and still no down arrow? I'm only a little over 100 and was wondering what the threshhold was...
- xiongchiamiov 16y agoDamn, I've got a long time 'til I see it, then, since I've only reached 136 karma in 192 days. I suppose that means I shouldn't be able to downvote, then. :)
- chanux 16y agoI once had a comment from a guy came here from reddit apologizing for an accidental downvote. I have accidentally clicked the wrong arrow several times. I can remember I wished if I can fix my mistake each time.
- mariuolo 16y agoNo, I mean yes.
- kloncks 16y agoOne could simply put the arrows next to each other instead of above one another. Ex: [up] [down] x points by username 17 hours ago | link Instead of: [u] x points by username 17 hours ago | link [d]
- Eliezer 16y agoProposal: If it's desirable that votes not be undoable, make them non-undoable after 5 minutes, but undoable until that point.
- kingkawn 16y agoOn the measure this is a small problem for something that is already relatively inconsequential.
- mmphosis 16y agoI would like an option to hide the downvote arrow. I very rarely downvote anyways.
- nhangen 16y agoI don't yet have sufficient karma to downvote, but personally, I'd like to see all downvotes accompanied with a note or counter-point. Perhaps an additional "are you sure" popup after a downvote would serve the purpose. From there, instead of downvoting spam, we could use a flag button.
- tokenadult 16y agoSee pg's comment on downvoting from 1099 days ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 Yes, I am aware that pg and other long-time curators of this site are still thinking about ways to refine the user interface. I personally, having observed many online discussion sites with many kinds of interfaces, think that active curation of the community members (including participant bans) is more important than the specific details of technology for commenting or karma voting. On some sites, administrators lack the spine to use their mops to clean up the mess. http://lesswrong.com/lw/c1/wellkept_gardens_die_by_pacifism/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/c1/wellkept_gardens_die_by_pacifism/ There has been consideration of using more flagging and less downvoting for certain kinds of posts, and I'd be happy to see what management here comes up with by way of experiments with new interfaces.
- nhangen 16y agoMy problem with PG's take in that comment is that it borders on passive aggressive behavior. Just today, I achieved enough Karma to downvote, but I don't plan on using it. Why? Because I don't think it's necessary, and I find more value in promoting value, than trying to tear down something that I disagree with. I believe that making it easier to lose Karma than to gain it is counter-productive, and will lead to bashful expression. In other words, that downvoting exists, without the necessity to back up said downvote, leads to a feeling that you can't openly express yourself, which is why we see comments like "I'm probably going to get downvoted for this, but..."
- mkr-hn 16y agoI went from 250 karma to almost 700 in a little over a week. I know it's a sample size of one, but it seems like the system works well enough.
- rabble 16y agoFor confused noobs or folks who don't spend too much time on hacker news, you need 500 karma points to be able to downvote. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1853529 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1853529
- cletus 16y agoStackoverflow solves this problem by giving you a (fairly narrow) window to rescind the cote or change your mind. I've never had this problem on a laptop/desktop but on the iPhone/iPad? Lots of times unfortunately.
- wicknicks 16y agoIt would be great even if we could change our option later. I sometimes think an article is really interesting, and upvote it -- but later think "maybe not". Vice versa, sometimes "boring" articles just need some time to sink in.
- Devilboy 16y agoEvery day.
- fluin 16y agoHow do you downvote? I only see up arrows
- Ben_Dean 16y agohahahahaahahaha.