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You're absolutely right. Upvote and downvote should be separate dimensions not two extremes of one dimension. The opposite of up/down vote is apathy. By summin
by po 15y ago
You're absolutely right. Upvote and downvote should be separate dimensions not two extremes of one dimension. The opposite of up/down vote is apathy.
By summing up and down votes, you are destroying data. There is no difference between a controversial point and an idea nobody cares about.
- sjs 15y agoExcellent point. I use a browser extension to show up and down votes on Reddit and I really miss that info here on HN. Not that we get to see comment scores anymore but I still miss it even on my own comments.
- llambda 15y agoIt would be interesting to have no downvote option at all and instead rely on flagging the comments that are effectively spam. The problem then becomes relying on the moderators to remove or degrade such posts. But clearly the upvote/downvote mechanism is broken as you've described...
- po 15y agoIf you remove downvote, people will start to use 'flag' to censor people and you won't be able to trust it anymore. I think leaving the buttons but just separating the calculations is enough: mostly upvotes: keep it mostly downvotes: drop it, its junk; the community has spoken many mixed up/down votes: controversial topic, maybe delay the appearance of reply links? few votes: boring, maybe sort it lower
- llambda 15y agoThe problem is that downvotes are used as a way of disagreeing with a comment. But what would be more productive and worthwhile is when there's differing perspectives there's a dialogue. Downvotes should be used to filter spam and other cruft but not differences of opinion.