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A lot of people on HN, myself included, consider votes to signal contribution to the discussion and not agreement/disagreement. Your comment is right in that th

by ramchip 16y ago

A lot of people on HN, myself included, consider votes to signal contribution to the discussion and not agreement/disagreement. Your comment is right in that they are often used as such, but I don't think it's desirable.

huhtenberg 16y ago
Yeah, I know the guidelines, but pg himself said that using voting to express (dis)agreement was OK. I don't have a link to his comment, but it was mentioned in another thread few days ago. To me his position confirms that the voting function currently sits with one butt on two chairs, and this may be the root of the fanboy-style mass-upvoting problem with comments (that, again, was pointed out by pg not few days ago).
- random42 16y ago
  > but pg himself said that using voting to express (dis)agreement was OK A link to his comment would be really appreciated. I find such statement, which is so contrary to guidelines, hard to believe with proof.
  - lotharbot 16y ago
    A quick search on http://searchyc.com/pg+disagreement http://searchyc.com/pg+disagreement gets me the following pg comments: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 "I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness." - pg, 1150 days ago http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=392347 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=392347 "Downvoting has always been used to express disagreement." - pg, 852 days ago http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658691 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658691 "IIRC we first had this conversation about a month after launch. Downvotes have always been used to express disagreement. Or more precisely, a negative score has: users seem not to downvote something they disagree with if it already has a sufficiently negative score." - pg, 665 days ago
    - random42 16y ago
      Thanks. Not sure if I agree with PG's opinion though.
- mryall 16y ago
  It would be good to provide a link. I've been through the last 8 days of pg's comments which you can browse here and haven't seen anything to that effect: http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pg http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pg Discussions will end up quite boring if people use votes to agree or disagree rather than expressing their point of view in a reply. I tend to think of votes on HN similar to the options for moderation on Slashdot: vote up for insight, vote down for off-topic or flamebait.
  - tokenadult 16y ago
    It would be good to provide a link. pg from 1150 days ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 I have had this bookmarked for more than a year, as this issue comes up over and over and over again. Sometimes downvotes to express disagreement with the stated position in a comment is the most concise way, the way most friendly to other readers of HN, to indicate that the comment didn't add value to the community. Of course, pg is experimenting right now to see if different software settings make upvotes, downvotes, flags, and so forth have better or worse effects on the community as a whole and on particular threads.

by ramchip 16y ago

huhtenberg 16y ago

Yeah, I know the guidelines, but pg himself said that using voting to express (dis)agreement was OK. I don't have a link to his comment, but it was mentioned in another thread few days ago. To me his position confirms that the voting function currently sits with one butt on two chairs, and this may be the root of the fanboy-style mass-upvoting problem with comments (that, again, was pointed out by pg not few days ago).

random42 16y ago
> but pg himself said that using voting to express (dis)agreement was OK A link to his comment would be really appreciated. I find such statement, which is so contrary to guidelines, hard to believe with proof.
- lotharbot 16y ago
  A quick search on http://searchyc.com/pg+disagreement http://searchyc.com/pg+disagreement gets me the following pg comments: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 "I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness." - pg, 1150 days ago http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=392347 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=392347 "Downvoting has always been used to express disagreement." - pg, 852 days ago http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658691 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658691 "IIRC we first had this conversation about a month after launch. Downvotes have always been used to express disagreement. Or more precisely, a negative score has: users seem not to downvote something they disagree with if it already has a sufficiently negative score." - pg, 665 days ago
  - random42 16y ago
    Thanks. Not sure if I agree with PG's opinion though.
mryall 16y ago
It would be good to provide a link. I've been through the last 8 days of pg's comments which you can browse here and haven't seen anything to that effect: http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pg http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pg Discussions will end up quite boring if people use votes to agree or disagree rather than expressing their point of view in a reply. I tend to think of votes on HN similar to the options for moderation on Slashdot: vote up for insight, vote down for off-topic or flamebait.
- tokenadult 16y ago
  It would be good to provide a link. pg from 1150 days ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 I have had this bookmarked for more than a year, as this issue comes up over and over and over again. Sometimes downvotes to express disagreement with the stated position in a comment is the most concise way, the way most friendly to other readers of HN, to indicate that the comment didn't add value to the community. Of course, pg is experimenting right now to see if different software settings make upvotes, downvotes, flags, and so forth have better or worse effects on the community as a whole and on particular threads.