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> Sometimes—usually with controversial topics—I've sat on my post and watched the votes oscillating up and down so in the end I've ended up with none or near ze

by roenxi 2y ago

> Sometimes—usually with controversial topics—I've sat on my post and watched the votes oscillating up and down so in the end I've ended up with none or near zero. Probably a form of upvoting that represents "I don't really agree with you, but I don't agree with the downvotes either". That means many comments will start attracting upvotes only when they are greyed out. It isn't so rare for reasonable but downvoted comments to bubble back up to exactly +1. > From my experience, almost inevitably, downvoters don't offer a counter viewpoint or argument. It'd be interesting to know how many people just don't use downvotes as a matter of course. The signal they send is wildly ambiguous. Although in this case I'd guess it was the ranty tone of the comment and the lack of charity, evidence or argument beyond assertions were the major factors.

hilbert42 2y ago
"It'd be interesting to know how many people just don't use downvotes as a matter of course. The signal they send is wildly ambiguous." Right. That's why I reckon HN should give the poster (and only the poster) the stats for both up and downvotes. As often, I'll not watch the voting but only get to see the final tally many days later and to find it sitting on zero or minus one. One's left not knowing whether one's view was middle-of-the-road and received lots of votes either way or if it was just one downvoter. Also, I'd like to see HN publish anonymized stats on how people vote, it would be interesting to know how many downvoters subsequently comment or fail to do so. Same with upvoters but I'd reckon downvoter stats would be more informative. BTW, see my reply to throwaway7ahgb, I posted it before reading your comment. Edit: in the time I've taken to write this reply my post to which you replied has been downvoted from two votes to one. There's been no subsequent negative comment in the interim. Point proved perhaps? ;-)

by roenxi 2y ago

hilbert42 2y ago

"It'd be interesting to know how many people just don't use downvotes as a matter of course. The signal they send is wildly ambiguous." Right. That's why I reckon HN should give the poster (and only the poster) the stats for both up and downvotes. As often, I'll not watch the voting but only get to see the final tally many days later and to find it sitting on zero or minus one. One's left not knowing whether one's view was middle-of-the-road and received lots of votes either way or if it was just one downvoter. Also, I'd like to see HN publish anonymized stats on how people vote, it would be interesting to know how many downvoters subsequently comment or fail to do so. Same with upvoters but I'd reckon downvoter stats would be more informative. BTW, see my reply to throwaway7ahgb, I posted it before reading your comment. Edit: in the time I've taken to write this reply my post to which you replied has been downvoted from two votes to one. There's been no subsequent negative comment in the interim. Point proved perhaps? ;-)