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> Downvoting is not a sign that a comment is poor quality, but a sign of simple disagreement even if the person downvoting can't formulate (or does not bother t

> Downvoting is not a sign that a comment is poor quality, but a sign of simple disagreement even if the person downvoting can't formulate (or does not bother to formulate) a response indicating why. You can lose karma if you reply. You can't lose karma if you downvote.

the_only_law 4y ago
I never understood this line. It seems antithetical to everything the site wants to be/claims to be/is .
- philipkglass 4y ago
  Votes allow people to express agreement/disagreement without cluttering the discussion. In old-style forums without votes the same sort of basic agree/disagree dynamic actually took up screen space. You'd have people writing "+1," "me too", "so true" (or "I don't think so", "educate yourself", "yeah right"...) as separate comments, each of which you'd have to skim past before finding the next bit of real conversation. You can't eliminate the human impulse to express disagreement, but you can try to channel it out of the way so that comments are longer and more substantive.
  - beefman 4y ago
    I've used newsgroups, mailing lists, forums for 30 years. This has never been a problem on any of them.
    - philipkglass 4y ago
      Perhaps the venues you used had stronger norms than those I used. To check my memory I just downloaded a collection of posts from rec.arts.sf.written (one of the newsgroups I used to use) from the Internet Archive. Matching my recollection, I see nested replies that are short and express attitude without substantially advancing discussion. e.g. >>>> DeLaney didn't say it could have happened, merely that he >>>> would have been happy if it did. >> >>> A distinction without meaning or merit. >> >>Wrong twice. > > On the contrary. It's dead spot on, in fact. You really are a retard, aren't you? I consider it better for participants to vote down this sort of noise rather than add to the chain of "nuh-uh" responses.
      - beefman 4y ago
        Oh, there were flame wars. I don't remember any with individual responses this brief though! I don't remember brevity of any kind being an issue. Flame wars sucked, but I'm beginning to think it's a case of 'cutting off tails on one side kills them on the other'. HN in particular has always given me vibes of: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734580/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734580/
      - beefman 4y ago
        At the risk of beating a dead horse, I think the tricky thing in evaluating comment voting is this: It's easy to look at a thread and see that junk comments were downvoted, and conclude it's working. It's harder to know which comments were never posted at all.

the_only_law 4y ago

I never understood this line. It seems antithetical to everything the site wants to be/claims to be/is .

philipkglass 4y ago
Votes allow people to express agreement/disagreement without cluttering the discussion. In old-style forums without votes the same sort of basic agree/disagree dynamic actually took up screen space. You'd have people writing "+1," "me too", "so true" (or "I don't think so", "educate yourself", "yeah right"...) as separate comments, each of which you'd have to skim past before finding the next bit of real conversation. You can't eliminate the human impulse to express disagreement, but you can try to channel it out of the way so that comments are longer and more substantive.
- beefman 4y ago
  I've used newsgroups, mailing lists, forums for 30 years. This has never been a problem on any of them.
  - philipkglass 4y ago
    Perhaps the venues you used had stronger norms than those I used. To check my memory I just downloaded a collection of posts from rec.arts.sf.written (one of the newsgroups I used to use) from the Internet Archive. Matching my recollection, I see nested replies that are short and express attitude without substantially advancing discussion. e.g. >>>> DeLaney didn't say it could have happened, merely that he >>>> would have been happy if it did. >> >>> A distinction without meaning or merit. >> >>Wrong twice. > > On the contrary. It's dead spot on, in fact. You really are a retard, aren't you? I consider it better for participants to vote down this sort of noise rather than add to the chain of "nuh-uh" responses.
    - beefman 4y ago
      Oh, there were flame wars. I don't remember any with individual responses this brief though! I don't remember brevity of any kind being an issue. Flame wars sucked, but I'm beginning to think it's a case of 'cutting off tails on one side kills them on the other'. HN in particular has always given me vibes of: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734580/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734580/
    - beefman 4y ago
      At the risk of beating a dead horse, I think the tricky thing in evaluating comment voting is this: It's easy to look at a thread and see that junk comments were downvoted, and conclude it's working. It's harder to know which comments were never posted at all.