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My policy is different than yours. I upmod for intelligent discussion and downmod for your same reasons. I do not always agree with what I upmod. I think tha

by qhoxie 18y ago

My policy is different than yours. I upmod for intelligent discussion and downmod for your same reasons. I do not always agree with what I upmod. I think that publishing a protocol is an interesting idea, but the entropy afforded by the current system seems to work well for HN. If anything, I could potentially see mentioning that people should probably not downmod just based on personal opinions.

unalone 18y ago
But people do get told that. They downvote anyway. The problem is that the big Hacker News personality type is one that gets very intent about arguments. I absolutely do. And when you're in an argument, even if you think the response is intelligent and contributes there's a kneejerk desire to downvote and hope that the hive mind will follow you and downvote. I'll admit that I've done the same, on occasion: it's a very pervasive mentality. It helps not being able to downvote until you have a certain amount of karma: it gives you a period of time during which you need to learn to respond intelligently. But that isn't an entire fix to the problem. Thankfully, to date it's still the uncommon thing to happen.
- shutter 18y ago
  Right. I think it's notable that karma and downmodding seems to generally take a back seat here. Very rarely have I seen something go -1 or worse that I still consider useful or legit. Generally, HN seems to favor commenting over downvoting, and that's good.
- qhoxie 18y ago
  I didn't say it would keep people from downmodding based on their opinions :) But having it said officially probably would not hurt the situation. I agree, though, that things rarely get out of hand - why I love HN.
scott_s 18y ago
Interesting about upmodding something you don't agree with. I find that upmodding a post gives me the psychological fix I need to feel like I contributed to a conversation. Without that fix, I still feel compelled to get my own voice in, even if my comment will be redundant. So I find upmodding someone else's post that I agree with prevents me from adding noise to an existing conversation. I naively assume (hope?) that all discussion will be intelligent, so I don't see any need to reward it. Consequently, I rarely give or take points away from a post. edit: I do rarely updmod posts I disagree with if I feel they are valid, and have been unfarily downmodded. I do this out of a desire for fairness.

by qhoxie 18y ago

unalone 18y ago

But people do get told that. They downvote anyway. The problem is that the big Hacker News personality type is one that gets very intent about arguments. I absolutely do. And when you're in an argument, even if you think the response is intelligent and contributes there's a kneejerk desire to downvote and hope that the hive mind will follow you and downvote. I'll admit that I've done the same, on occasion: it's a very pervasive mentality. It helps not being able to downvote until you have a certain amount of karma: it gives you a period of time during which you need to learn to respond intelligently. But that isn't an entire fix to the problem. Thankfully, to date it's still the uncommon thing to happen.

shutter 18y ago
Right. I think it's notable that karma and downmodding seems to generally take a back seat here. Very rarely have I seen something go -1 or worse that I still consider useful or legit. Generally, HN seems to favor commenting over downvoting, and that's good.
qhoxie 18y ago
I didn't say it would keep people from downmodding based on their opinions :) But having it said officially probably would not hurt the situation. I agree, though, that things rarely get out of hand - why I love HN.

scott_s 18y ago

Interesting about upmodding something you don't agree with. I find that upmodding a post gives me the psychological fix I need to feel like I contributed to a conversation. Without that fix, I still feel compelled to get my own voice in, even if my comment will be redundant. So I find upmodding someone else's post that I agree with prevents me from adding noise to an existing conversation. I naively assume (hope?) that all discussion will be intelligent, so I don't see any need to reward it. Consequently, I rarely give or take points away from a post. edit: I do rarely updmod posts I disagree with if I feel they are valid, and have been unfarily downmodded. I do this out of a desire for fairness.