3 ms·

> I think up and down voting are great It is great as a poor man's analytics system, providing knowledge that at least someone read your comment, allowing you

> I think up and down voting are great It is great as a poor man's analytics system, providing knowledge that at least someone read your comment, allowing you to evaluate if it is worth posting more or if your efforts are disappearing into the void. However, having both up and down seems redundant. The both provide the exact same information. > however what is dumb is that neither has a cost. If there is a cost then there will be reduced incentive to let you know that your comment was read, which reduces future engagement, which is not ideal for the platform.

endisneigh 5y ago
> It is great as a poor man's analytics system, providing knowledge that at least someone read your comment, allowing you to evaluate if it is worth posting more or if your efforts are disappearing into the void. However, having both up and down seems redundant. The both provide the exact same information. I disagree. If a comment has 100 likes and 100 dislikes that clearly is different than a comment that has 200 likes or 200 dislikes. A new metric, controversiality is created when you look at both the total amount of likes and dislikes and the ratio between them given a comment. Depending on your inclination a comment with a high, equal number of likes and dislikes is perhaps more engaging than the same number of solely likes or dislikes. > If there is a cost then there will be reduced incentive to let you know that your comment was read, which reduces future engagement, which is not ideal for the platform. Depending on how it's implemented, this may or may not matter. For example you could allow people to like or dislike without limit, but after a certain amount (them exhausting their own karma) its effect changes, but regardless they can continue to do it.
- judge2020 5y ago
  This is basically what people did on their own when they say a tweet gets "ratioed" by having more quote retweets than likes - the downvote button is probably just turning that into a first-party feature.
- randomdata 5y ago
  > I disagree. If a comment has 100 likes and 100 dislikes that clearly is different than a comment that has 200 likes or 200 dislikes. There is no information provided by the button click other than that the button was clicked. Which button the user decides to choose may as well be considered arbitrary because onlookers have no way of ever determining the true intent unless the button presser also comments with their intent. I find it curious that what was up/down has changed to like/dislike in your comment. Being able to see that someone read your comment is the reward provided by these 'karma' systems. Nobody wants to spend a slice of their life writing something that nobody will ever read. Finding readership is the goal and creating content with enough quality that someone wants to go out of their way to tell you that they read it is how you validate that you are accomplishing your goal. Either button can convey that information. With that, isn't 'dislike' logically no button press? If you truly dislike something, why do you want to reward the author?
  - ewired 5y ago
    I think only a troll commenter would find receiving dislikes to be a rewarding experience.
    - randomdata 5y ago
      I imagine receiving dislikes wouldn't be rewarding, however the up/down buttons do not convey that kind of information. All they can fundamentally tell you is that someone (assuming appropriate bot protection is in place) pressed a button in proximity to your comment. There is no other information attached with the action. It could be purely accidental for all you know. Knowing that people have loaded your comment in order for the button to be presented, and thus statistically are likely to have read it, should be rewarding, though. After all, wanting others to read your work is why you're writing in a public forum and not your private journal.
  - kortex 5y ago
    Looks like you are being rewarded quite handsomely. Not only is "there is no info provided by which button was clicked" a really odd take when we humans explicitly assign semantic to up/down vote, this contradicts your other point, which is that "having your post read is the real reward," since there is no guarantee the post was read before voting.
- woko 5y ago
  Note sure what you mean by "a new metric". Sorting by "controversy" has been an option on Reddit for a long time. Most people won't use this option, but it exists. The formula is here: https://github.com/reddit-archive/reddit/blob/753b17407e9a9dca09558526805922de24133d53/r2/r2/lib/db/_sorts.pyx#L60-L68 https://github.com/reddit-archive/reddit/blob/753b17407e9a9d...
- BeFlatXIII 5y ago
  > you could allow people to like or dislike without limit, but after a certain amount (them exhausting their own karma) its effect changes, but regardless they can continue to do it Reddit already applied this at the aggregate scale: any individual comment can only cost you up to 100 karma and negative karma scores on user profiles are capped at -100. That all said, how would these karma economy proposals interact with the fact that some subreddits are orders of magnitude less popular than others? Would it cost less to vote on items in small subreddits? Would upvoting already highly-upvoted submissions be free (but do nothing on the back end) or would it be expensive as an encouragement that the community has already spoken and to spend your votes elsewhere? Would doing against community opinion be cheap (since more people agreeing the Earth is round doesn’t add much to the discussion) or would it be a pricey 10x vote?

endisneigh 5y ago

> It is great as a poor man's analytics system, providing knowledge that at least someone read your comment, allowing you to evaluate if it is worth posting more or if your efforts are disappearing into the void. However, having both up and down seems redundant. The both provide the exact same information. I disagree. If a comment has 100 likes and 100 dislikes that clearly is different than a comment that has 200 likes or 200 dislikes. A new metric, controversiality is created when you look at both the total amount of likes and dislikes and the ratio between them given a comment. Depending on your inclination a comment with a high, equal number of likes and dislikes is perhaps more engaging than the same number of solely likes or dislikes. > If there is a cost then there will be reduced incentive to let you know that your comment was read, which reduces future engagement, which is not ideal for the platform. Depending on how it's implemented, this may or may not matter. For example you could allow people to like or dislike without limit, but after a certain amount (them exhausting their own karma) its effect changes, but regardless they can continue to do it.

judge2020 5y ago
This is basically what people did on their own when they say a tweet gets "ratioed" by having more quote retweets than likes - the downvote button is probably just turning that into a first-party feature.
randomdata 5y ago
> I disagree. If a comment has 100 likes and 100 dislikes that clearly is different than a comment that has 200 likes or 200 dislikes. There is no information provided by the button click other than that the button was clicked. Which button the user decides to choose may as well be considered arbitrary because onlookers have no way of ever determining the true intent unless the button presser also comments with their intent. I find it curious that what was up/down has changed to like/dislike in your comment. Being able to see that someone read your comment is the reward provided by these 'karma' systems. Nobody wants to spend a slice of their life writing something that nobody will ever read. Finding readership is the goal and creating content with enough quality that someone wants to go out of their way to tell you that they read it is how you validate that you are accomplishing your goal. Either button can convey that information. With that, isn't 'dislike' logically no button press? If you truly dislike something, why do you want to reward the author?
- ewired 5y ago
  I think only a troll commenter would find receiving dislikes to be a rewarding experience.
  - randomdata 5y ago
    I imagine receiving dislikes wouldn't be rewarding, however the up/down buttons do not convey that kind of information. All they can fundamentally tell you is that someone (assuming appropriate bot protection is in place) pressed a button in proximity to your comment. There is no other information attached with the action. It could be purely accidental for all you know. Knowing that people have loaded your comment in order for the button to be presented, and thus statistically are likely to have read it, should be rewarding, though. After all, wanting others to read your work is why you're writing in a public forum and not your private journal.
- kortex 5y ago
  Looks like you are being rewarded quite handsomely. Not only is "there is no info provided by which button was clicked" a really odd take when we humans explicitly assign semantic to up/down vote, this contradicts your other point, which is that "having your post read is the real reward," since there is no guarantee the post was read before voting.
woko 5y ago
Note sure what you mean by "a new metric". Sorting by "controversy" has been an option on Reddit for a long time. Most people won't use this option, but it exists. The formula is here: https://github.com/reddit-archive/reddit/blob/753b17407e9a9dca09558526805922de24133d53/r2/r2/lib/db/_sorts.pyx#L60-L68 https://github.com/reddit-archive/reddit/blob/753b17407e9a9d...
BeFlatXIII 5y ago
> you could allow people to like or dislike without limit, but after a certain amount (them exhausting their own karma) its effect changes, but regardless they can continue to do it Reddit already applied this at the aggregate scale: any individual comment can only cost you up to 100 karma and negative karma scores on user profiles are capped at -100. That all said, how would these karma economy proposals interact with the fact that some subreddits are orders of magnitude less popular than others? Would it cost less to vote on items in small subreddits? Would upvoting already highly-upvoted submissions be free (but do nothing on the back end) or would it be expensive as an encouragement that the community has already spoken and to spend your votes elsewhere? Would doing against community opinion be cheap (since more people agreeing the Earth is round doesn’t add much to the discussion) or would it be a pricey 10x vote?