3 ms·

What about allowing downvoting of stories (maybe not below 1?). Upvoting is subjective too, and while flagging may be to strong for something so subjective and

What about allowing downvoting of stories (maybe not below 1?). Upvoting is subjective too, and while flagging may be to strong for something so subjective and ill-defined, maybe it would help if people could downvote a story so that it disappears from the front page faster.

adrianhoward 14y ago
It seems likely that downvoting won't help any more than upvoting or flagging. All would be done on people's personal preferences. All would result in lists that will annoy some folk. As I see it the problem is not that 'fluff' gets to the front page. The problem is that the hackernews community is now sufficiently large that there are groups who have very different ideas of what 'fluff' is.
- huhtenberg 14y ago
  "Fluff" is all that relates to the mainstream tech news. Basic Litmus test - is it something that Engadget/Arstechnica/etc would pick up? If yes, then I'd rather not see it here. Alternatively, since the comments on HN can be of a value - have a separate section for mainstream tech subjects. Like the Ask page. And call it Fluff :)
  - adrianhoward 14y ago
    Basic Litmus test - is it something that Engadget/Arstechnica/etc would pick up? If yes, then I'd rather not see it here. And that's a perfectly reasonable litmus test for what you consider fluff/non-fluff. It doesn't work well for me (for example - I personally like the arstechnica stuff I see here. I don't follow, and don't have the time or interest to follow, most of the arstechncia stuff that gets published. The stuff I see here tends to be the stuff I'm interested in. On the other hand I could quite happily never see a techcrunch or verge post ever again ;-) I'm sure there are a bunch of HN posters who would disagree with both of us (and a bunch more that would agree). To misquote Walt Whitman - HN is large. It contains multitudes :-) If I was going to bet - I'd say that HN is going to end up in one of three places: 1) Things stay pretty much as they are. The admin folk add in new tweaks around post promotion, voting, karma displays, voting on new posts, etc. The community continues to grow. As it does the majority view of what the site "is" will change. This will annoy some folk who preferred the 'old' majority view. Where this ends up - something like slashdot. 2) HN fragments. Tagging / sub-groups / whatever. Some way for folk to focus on the stuff they're interested in and ignore the rest. They'll still be trolling/flames - but it'll be more obvious since folk will need to explicitly search it out rather than having stuff that runs counter to their world view hitting their front page. This ends up more like reddit. 3) YC/PG/whoever decides what HN should be. We acquire moderators with banhammers of doom - possibly recruited/promoted by the HN community. Much more focussed submission guidelines. Lots of self-policing and strong and rapid responses to closing/flagging posts. Associated accusations of bias / censorship. I suspect we'll get (1) or (2). Especially with us being a rather geekish site - and us geeky folk do love trying to solve social problems with technical solutions ;-)
- anonymouz 14y ago
  Of course it would be personal preference. But the way it is now people still upvote certain articles based on personal preference, but there is no way for the "opposite" group to express their personal preference by downvoting, thereby potentially cancelling out the people who upvote out of personal preference. So you get a sort of upward bias for these emotionally loaded articles. I'm not saying that allowing downvoting will perfectly cancel this out, but at least it may do so to a certain degree.

adrianhoward 14y ago

It seems likely that downvoting won't help any more than upvoting or flagging. All would be done on people's personal preferences. All would result in lists that will annoy some folk. As I see it the problem is not that 'fluff' gets to the front page. The problem is that the hackernews community is now sufficiently large that there are groups who have very different ideas of what 'fluff' is.

huhtenberg 14y ago
"Fluff" is all that relates to the mainstream tech news. Basic Litmus test - is it something that Engadget/Arstechnica/etc would pick up? If yes, then I'd rather not see it here. Alternatively, since the comments on HN can be of a value - have a separate section for mainstream tech subjects. Like the Ask page. And call it Fluff :)
- adrianhoward 14y ago
  Basic Litmus test - is it something that Engadget/Arstechnica/etc would pick up? If yes, then I'd rather not see it here. And that's a perfectly reasonable litmus test for what you consider fluff/non-fluff. It doesn't work well for me (for example - I personally like the arstechnica stuff I see here. I don't follow, and don't have the time or interest to follow, most of the arstechncia stuff that gets published. The stuff I see here tends to be the stuff I'm interested in. On the other hand I could quite happily never see a techcrunch or verge post ever again ;-) I'm sure there are a bunch of HN posters who would disagree with both of us (and a bunch more that would agree). To misquote Walt Whitman - HN is large. It contains multitudes :-) If I was going to bet - I'd say that HN is going to end up in one of three places: 1) Things stay pretty much as they are. The admin folk add in new tweaks around post promotion, voting, karma displays, voting on new posts, etc. The community continues to grow. As it does the majority view of what the site "is" will change. This will annoy some folk who preferred the 'old' majority view. Where this ends up - something like slashdot. 2) HN fragments. Tagging / sub-groups / whatever. Some way for folk to focus on the stuff they're interested in and ignore the rest. They'll still be trolling/flames - but it'll be more obvious since folk will need to explicitly search it out rather than having stuff that runs counter to their world view hitting their front page. This ends up more like reddit. 3) YC/PG/whoever decides what HN should be. We acquire moderators with banhammers of doom - possibly recruited/promoted by the HN community. Much more focussed submission guidelines. Lots of self-policing and strong and rapid responses to closing/flagging posts. Associated accusations of bias / censorship. I suspect we'll get (1) or (2). Especially with us being a rather geekish site - and us geeky folk do love trying to solve social problems with technical solutions ;-)
anonymouz 14y ago
Of course it would be personal preference. But the way it is now people still upvote certain articles based on personal preference, but there is no way for the "opposite" group to express their personal preference by downvoting, thereby potentially cancelling out the people who upvote out of personal preference. So you get a sort of upward bias for these emotionally loaded articles. I'm not saying that allowing downvoting will perfectly cancel this out, but at least it may do so to a certain degree.