3 ms·

The Value of Downvoting, Or, How Hacker News Gets It Wrong (2009)

3 points by throwup238 3y ago

coldtea 3y ago
Not very compelling. First, the author finds out soon enough that it is possible "(update: Apparently it is possible to downvote comments, which I never realized. It is buried in the faq:)" when all the premise was how it's impossible to do so, and how that's bad. Second, he says: "The advantage of this system is that nobody gets downvoted, but at a steep cost: we've lost half the potential information. If a post has zero upvotes, does that mean it's bad? incorrect? uninteresting? mediocre? There's no way to tell, because zero has multiple meanings." This is missing the fact that (even if no downvote was the case), the social aspects of this choice, and the encouraging of specific interactions and behavior, can very well be more important than getting "more information" for individual comments. Third, it presents Stack Overflow as "getting it right". Enough said.
Rochus 3y ago
> the most notable difference between Hacker News and Reddit is that it's impossible to downvote anything on Hacker News. [..] It's an interesting design decision, but ultimately a bad one, in my opinion. That's not true (as the author realized himself). And I don't agree with the author; letting people downvote is unfortunate in my opinion, and a bad design decision. The possibility to downvote encourages misuse. I don't see any reason for the majority of downvotes I come across; mostly it's just other opinions that don't suit a few people; often it's even the correct presentation of the facts that has been downvoted. Most people on HN are anonymous. Downvoting is even more anonymous; there is usually no record from who the downvotes come. If you're interested in the effects of anonymity to people, watch this part of Zimbardo's very interesting lecture: https://youtu.be/OsFEV35tWsg?t=959 https://youtu.be/OsFEV35tWsg?t=959. The anonymity of the web, or the masses, gives these people a power that obviously overwhelms them. There were experiments which demonstrated how it can play out when ordinary people suddenly gain power (see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment). The possibility to downvote promotes the bad in people. And it is not even necessary. If you like a comment or story for whatever reason, you can upvote. That's already enough to promote popular content, and demote unpopular content. And if a comment violates site rules, it can be flagged. Of course also flagging can be misused (as it is very popular e.g. on Lobsters); this can be mitigated in that the admin kicks out people who misuse flagging. And that's likely the issue: the admin prefers delegating work to the community, which is likely the main and only reason why the downvoting features persists.

3 points by throwup238 3y ago

Not very compelling. First, the author finds out soon enough that it is possible "(update: Apparently it is possible to downvote comments, which I never realized. It is buried in the faq:)" when all the premise was how it's impossible to do so, and how that's bad. Second, he says: "The advantage of this system is that nobody gets downvoted, but at a steep cost: we've lost half the potential information. If a post has zero upvotes, does that mean it's bad? incorrect? uninteresting? mediocre? There's no way to tell, because zero has multiple meanings." This is missing the fact that (even if no downvote was the case), the social aspects of this choice, and the encouraging of specific interactions and behavior, can very well be more important than getting "more information" for individual comments. Third, it presents Stack Overflow as "getting it right". Enough said.

Rochus 3y ago

> the most notable difference between Hacker News and Reddit is that it's impossible to downvote anything on Hacker News. [..] It's an interesting design decision, but ultimately a bad one, in my opinion. That's not true (as the author realized himself). And I don't agree with the author; letting people downvote is unfortunate in my opinion, and a bad design decision. The possibility to downvote encourages misuse. I don't see any reason for the majority of downvotes I come across; mostly it's just other opinions that don't suit a few people; often it's even the correct presentation of the facts that has been downvoted. Most people on HN are anonymous. Downvoting is even more anonymous; there is usually no record from who the downvotes come. If you're interested in the effects of anonymity to people, watch this part of Zimbardo's very interesting lecture: https://youtu.be/OsFEV35tWsg?t=959 https://youtu.be/OsFEV35tWsg?t=959. The anonymity of the web, or the masses, gives these people a power that obviously overwhelms them. There were experiments which demonstrated how it can play out when ordinary people suddenly gain power (see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment). The possibility to downvote promotes the bad in people. And it is not even necessary. If you like a comment or story for whatever reason, you can upvote. That's already enough to promote popular content, and demote unpopular content. And if a comment violates site rules, it can be flagged. Of course also flagging can be misused (as it is very popular e.g. on Lobsters); this can be mitigated in that the admin kicks out people who misuse flagging. And that's likely the issue: the admin prefers delegating work to the community, which is likely the main and only reason why the downvoting features persists.