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I am often faced with a dilemma when trying to decide whether to vote on a particular post or comment. There are times when it is very informative, well written

I am often faced with a dilemma when trying to decide whether to vote on a particular post or comment. There are times when it is very informative, well written, and you can tell a lot of thought went into it; but I happen to disagree with the author's point of view. The same occurs when I agree with the author's sentiment, but the comment itself is poorly written and not well argued. There is only a single up/down vote. You can't upvote a thoughtful comment for its quality, while also downvoting its conclusion. Sometimes I have strong opinions about something; but I also try to educate myself with the other side of the issue by reading thoughtful articles and/or comments from people with different points of view. It would be nice if you could choose between two different 'modes' in the interface. One where the highest quality comments are near the top. The other where the most popular viewpoints are prioritized.

andromaton 3y ago
I upvoted your comment on both criteria. It would be very useful to have 2 dimensions. It's amazing nobody does afaik! @dang, as a Arc expert, let me assure it's only 4 lines of code, 1 field on db, 52 bytes of js, css, and html, and it won't cause performance, security, accessibility, privacy, or usability issues /s
karaterobot 3y ago
I think it's probably better to just upvote well-written or well-argued comments whether you agree with the author's point of view or not. Makes for a more interesting place where people occasionally change their minds. I was going to say that the HN guidelines advise doing this, but I cannot actually find anything about what an upvote 'means' on HN. Plenty about what makes a good submission, or a good comment, but nothing on voting. Maybe they just gave up on trying to do that! The above notwithstanding, I would like to see something like your proposal implemented, just to see how it works out empirically.
lonk11 3y ago
The dilemma you face stems from the ambiguous nature of the upvote button: 1. As an "agree" button - you upvote to get the perspective you share to be displayed more prominently to other people. It is a way for you to influence other readers. 2. As "it was useful to me and a good use of my time" button. You use it because you think other users will find it informative as well. In this case you are doing purely for the benefit of others. 3. As "it made me laugh or evoked some other emotions" button. All three could be viewed as different dimensions of content and one item/comment can have different combinations along these dimensions. It is complicated by the fact that content creators are actively optimizing their content along these dimensions to gain more visibility. When I come to HN, as a reader, I want to see mostly informative content - which is only dimension 2. I don't want to be influenced or persuaded. And while I enjoy a good laugh - that's not my goal coming to HN. This makes the other two content dimensions contribute to noise. Your suggestion to split out the upvote into separate labels like "agree", "informative" and "funny" [1] and to let users sort by the dimension of their choice may not solve the problem of separating "agree" from "informative" because there is no incentive for the voters to vote truthfully. People who upvote content they agree with want other people to see that content. If most users are sorting by informative then those voters will upvote content they agree with using the "informative" button. I think you need to change the system of incentives in order for voters to upvote only informative content and not 1 and 3. One way to do this is to make what you upvote have more consequences for the type of content you see in the future and less directly affect the ranking of that content for all users [2]. With a feedback loop like this the upvote button is no longer "what content do I want other people to see", but "what type of content do I want my future self to see". It makes you think before voting - "Was it worth my time?", "Is this kind of content aligned with my long term goals?" [1] - Slashdot has something like this: "funny", "interesting", "insigthful" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot#Peer_moderation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot#Peer_moderation but I don't think you can sort by it. Also, only a subset of users are given these moderator points. [2] - I'm building https://linklonk.com https://linklonk.com that works this way.
PoignardAzur 3y ago
The LessWrong forum has a split between "upvotes/downvotes" and "agree/disagree votes" to address this. In practice, it doesn't really seem to affect outcomes that much, but it's a cute feature.

andromaton 3y ago

I upvoted your comment on both criteria. It would be very useful to have 2 dimensions. It's amazing nobody does afaik! @dang, as a Arc expert, let me assure it's only 4 lines of code, 1 field on db, 52 bytes of js, css, and html, and it won't cause performance, security, accessibility, privacy, or usability issues /s

karaterobot 3y ago

I think it's probably better to just upvote well-written or well-argued comments whether you agree with the author's point of view or not. Makes for a more interesting place where people occasionally change their minds. I was going to say that the HN guidelines advise doing this, but I cannot actually find anything about what an upvote 'means' on HN. Plenty about what makes a good submission, or a good comment, but nothing on voting. Maybe they just gave up on trying to do that! The above notwithstanding, I would like to see something like your proposal implemented, just to see how it works out empirically.

lonk11 3y ago

The dilemma you face stems from the ambiguous nature of the upvote button: 1. As an "agree" button - you upvote to get the perspective you share to be displayed more prominently to other people. It is a way for you to influence other readers. 2. As "it was useful to me and a good use of my time" button. You use it because you think other users will find it informative as well. In this case you are doing purely for the benefit of others. 3. As "it made me laugh or evoked some other emotions" button. All three could be viewed as different dimensions of content and one item/comment can have different combinations along these dimensions. It is complicated by the fact that content creators are actively optimizing their content along these dimensions to gain more visibility. When I come to HN, as a reader, I want to see mostly informative content - which is only dimension 2. I don't want to be influenced or persuaded. And while I enjoy a good laugh - that's not my goal coming to HN. This makes the other two content dimensions contribute to noise. Your suggestion to split out the upvote into separate labels like "agree", "informative" and "funny" [1] and to let users sort by the dimension of their choice may not solve the problem of separating "agree" from "informative" because there is no incentive for the voters to vote truthfully. People who upvote content they agree with want other people to see that content. If most users are sorting by informative then those voters will upvote content they agree with using the "informative" button. I think you need to change the system of incentives in order for voters to upvote only informative content and not 1 and 3. One way to do this is to make what you upvote have more consequences for the type of content you see in the future and less directly affect the ranking of that content for all users [2]. With a feedback loop like this the upvote button is no longer "what content do I want other people to see", but "what type of content do I want my future self to see". It makes you think before voting - "Was it worth my time?", "Is this kind of content aligned with my long term goals?" [1] - Slashdot has something like this: "funny", "interesting", "insigthful" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot#Peer_moderation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot#Peer_moderation but I don't think you can sort by it. Also, only a subset of users are given these moderator points. [2] - I'm building https://linklonk.com https://linklonk.com that works this way.

PoignardAzur 3y ago

The LessWrong forum has a split between "upvotes/downvotes" and "agree/disagree votes" to address this. In practice, it doesn't really seem to affect outcomes that much, but it's a cute feature.