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Ask HN: Why do you upvote a submission?
This isn't going to get everything right, but it's something I've been wondering for a while. Please think about it and answer as honestly as you can.
I usually upvote a submission because I...
- writtles 13y agoI want to see community discussion about the submission.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- rpietro 13y agoi think it's interesting enough for me to read beyond the title
- tokenadult 13y agoI upvote a submitted article if I think the submission says something important (at least thought-provoking, and possibly unknown to most people here) that will help hackers do their business ventures and their personal living better.
- bgar 13y agoI upvote a submission when it's interesting enough that I don't just skim it, and also to keep the submission in my saved stories.
- jseliger 13y agoother (comment) The article is interesting, intellectually stimulating, teaches me something I don't know, teaches something to others that they should know, "engaging," or unexpected in a positive way. I actually think all of the other answers are not good and contrary to the spirit the forum is trying to cultivate.
- waterlesscloud 13y agoI often upvote it to 'save' it. If 'save' and 'upvote' were different functions, I'd likely upvote less often.
- olefoo 13y agoMy heuristic is that if I have not seen it and I wish I'd seen it earlier on HN, then I will upvote.
- dotBen 13y agoFor a complete picture, perhaps you should add "I don't tend to upvote submissions", which I would put myself into.
- special 13y agoEach of my upvotes probably breaks down to: 10% - A digital thumbs-up to the author. 20% - I feel like I gained something from the article and I want to repay the author by promoting his work. 30% - I want other people to see it because the world would be better if more people knew about the subject of the article. 40% - Fulfilling a narcissistic craving to express my approval of something similar to a Facebook Like or Youtube Thumbs-Up. It gets interesting when the link is, for example, a raffle. I want to upvote because of the first, second and last reasons but I want to downvote so that less people hear about it thus increasing my own chance of winning. Individualism vs collectivism encapsulated in a single mouse click.
- PeterisP 13y agoA major factor is repetition - if I saw the same topic (even if a bit different article) on the first/second page yesterday, then I definitely won't upvote.
- greenyoda 13y agoIn rare cases, I'll upvote an article that I think is sub-par (poorly written, logically flawed, a bit off-topic, previously posted, etc.) just because I think it might provoke an interesting discussion. In many cases, the comments here make much more interesting reading than the articles.
- informatimago 13y agoSometimes I up vote a couple of submissions following one I would want to down vote, but since there is no down vote, we can only try to up vote relatively all the others.