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I've mentioned this before, and this seems like as good a place as any to say it again: I think HN is a bit too profligate with downvotes, and I've seen it get

I've mentioned this before, and this seems like as good a place as any to say it again: I think HN is a bit too profligate with downvotes, and I've seen it get incrementally worse over time. My solution to this would be, at 501 karma, a user gets 5 downvotes per 24-hour period, use them or lose them. 1 more downvote per 100 points. This would gently teach users to downvote a bit more sparingly. Karma isn't that hard to come by, and even when I'm in a really bad mood (or there's some awful thread) I'd be surprised if I hit 30 downvotes in a day. By the time a user had as much downvote ability as they're likely to use, a habit of being less thoughtless about it would be well-established. Human psychology being what it is, there is a subset of high-karma accounts which never ever downvote, and another subset who basically just come on here and slam the dislike button until their spleen is vented. I don't consider these approaches to be equally beneficial.

elliekelly 6y ago
It does get confusing when someone writes a potentially interesting comment that also includes something many people could vehemently disagree with. I see it a lot on cryptocurrency posts, for example. Is it grey because it’s totally and completely wrong or is it grey because people disagree? ‘Tis a mystery!
mattowen_uk 6y ago
> My solution to this would be, at 501 karma, a user gets 5 downvotes per 24-hour period, use them or lose them. That's straying too close to the Slashdot voting system for my liking.
- samatman 6y ago
  Can you elaborate on that? Genuine question, karma belongs in the hall of Hard Problems next to naming things and cache invalidation.
  - mattowen_uk 6y ago
    Slashdot has this concept of meta-moderation, where you get randomly allocated 5 extra mod points to use how you see fit. It's been a long time since I was a Slashdot user, so the system may have changed since then.

elliekelly 6y ago

It does get confusing when someone writes a potentially interesting comment that also includes something many people could vehemently disagree with. I see it a lot on cryptocurrency posts, for example. Is it grey because it’s totally and completely wrong or is it grey because people disagree? ‘Tis a mystery!

mattowen_uk 6y ago

> My solution to this would be, at 501 karma, a user gets 5 downvotes per 24-hour period, use them or lose them. That's straying too close to the Slashdot voting system for my liking.

samatman 6y ago
Can you elaborate on that? Genuine question, karma belongs in the hall of Hard Problems next to naming things and cache invalidation.
- mattowen_uk 6y ago
  Slashdot has this concept of meta-moderation, where you get randomly allocated 5 extra mod points to use how you see fit. It's been a long time since I was a Slashdot user, so the system may have changed since then.