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The Zen of HN
- mcav 17y agoPython has cool, witty Zen. This is not as cool and hardly witty, but I figured I'd take a stab at it and let the rest of you improve or rewrite it. It's on GitHub, and I'm no poet, so feel free to edit/fork/dismiss as you see fit.
- cool-RR 17y agoI don't think downvotes should be used for disagreeing.
- mcav 17y agoRight; that was intended to mean that people sometimes use them for disagreement, despite that they probably shouldn't. Any thoughts on a better wording?
- RiderOfGiraffes 17y agoDisagree by constructive counter-comment, reserve down-mods for disapproval.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- gizmo 17y agoWithout putting much thought into it: "Downvotes mark comments without merit" If something has educational, thoughtful, contrarian (encourages discussion), etc merit it's welcome on HN. If a comment has nothing going for it; is just lame, or a pun, or an unnecessary meta comment, then a downvote makes sense.
- pygy 17y agoActually, there should be no correlations between votes and agreement. Upvotes should reward civil comments that feed the conversation constructively. Aggressivity, and empty posts ("cheerleaders", etc.) should be downvoted. Flags are for grossly offensive or illegal content. That was the original intent IIRC: encouraging civil conversation. Tying votes with agreement leads to groupthink. We should encourage diversity unless we want to become a close-minded community, reinforcing it's own biases.
- trjordan 17y agoThis is true, but I think mcav's point was that this is not how they're used. People should do this, but when you're on the receiving end of votes, you should remember this to explain why you got them.
- pygy 17y agoIt's easy to take the "upvote what you like" shortcut, I do These principles are (were?) pg's whishes regarding comment threads. As time passes, the proportion of people who had been directly exposed to these ideas dimishes. The previous post was intended to them (and as a reminder for the rest of us, me included).
- GHFigs 17y agoAre there any communities where this ideal has been met with a simple voting system?
- gojomo 17y agoI totally agree that you've described the ideal. Unfortunately, with the UI and people's natural tendencies, it's unavoidable that votes be used for quick-and-easy agreement/disagreement. And there's a certain alluring efficiency to it: once there's a couplet of opposed viewpoints, just weigh in with your "vote". That's what "votes" are for in a democracy, right? The habit of only using downvotes to signal disagreement when a comment is highly-rated helps a bit, but isn't universally applied and and throws time-of-vote in as a confounding signal. (There are comments that I will upvote if <0, abstain if 1-2, and downvote if >2 -- so it all depends on when I see it. With others doing the same, totals are more reflective of 'the last few voters' than the community.) These could be addressed by UI changes. One idea I've plugged before would be to offer a separate axis of voting which is explicitly agree/disagree -- so people aren't tempted to use promote/demote that way. Agreement scores could also be hidden until a user votes -- so each vote is independent. This makes more sense on a pure agree/disagree scale than promote/demote. PG clearly wants to discourage demote piling-on; he first tried through suasion and when that failed now enforces in software the -8 floor. And discouraging piling-on makes sense: demotion-votes sting with a sense of community censure, while disagreement is just a normal healthy part of conversation. My ideal comment would be a +50 on the promote-scale, and a -50 on the agree-scale. It means people appreciate having heard something they disagree with, so some novelty/signal/thought is occurring.
- swombat 17y agoUpvotes mark value Downvotes mark lack of value Downvotes should be far more rare than upvotes
- pygy 17y agoFour legs good, two legs bad. If you simplify too much you're at risk of losing the original intent.
- jodrellblank 17y agoI downvote more than upvote because it's easier to pick on one or two comments to downvote than tens to upvote.
- frossie 17y agoMy internal version: Upvotes mark signal Donwnvotes mark noise That said, I do think I have a non-linear response. If I see a comment at -1 which I think has genuine signal I upvote it, even if I completely disagree with the point made. However if the same comment is at +10 I will not upvote it if I don't agree with it. I am more worried about the duplicates though, I wish there was an easier way to figure out you are submitting a duplicate story besides conducting a prior search. Something like "Thank you for your submission, here are some stories from HN with the same keywords in the last few months, are you sure you want to go ahead?" would be nice.
- quizbiz 17y agoWe perceive what we agree with to be of higher value. Confirmation bias.
- IsaacSchlueter 17y agoRegardless of what anyone tries to say about what anyone should or shouldn't do, we're always going to use downvotes for disagreement. The up and down arrows are ambiguous, and we'll tend to use "up" to mean "I like this", and "down" to mean "I don't like this". Generally, people tend to like opinions that they agree with, and dislike opinions that they don't agree with. I think it's better to accept this and live with it. Unpopular ideas will be disapproved of, and disagreed with, and downvoted. That's just how it is. If you prefer to upvote well-put ideas that you don't agree with, then you are free to do that.
- three14 17y agoWe could still discourage voting to show agreement or disagreement, even if sometimes people won't actually pay attention to the guidelines in the hopes of having better discussions. If you had only one upvote, given the choice, would you give it to a comment that just says "me too" to an idea you agree with, or a well thought out comment arguing with that idea?
- Retric 17y agoOnce a comment is +5 or higher. I think down votes can record peoples disagreement without cluttering the page. This can counter people up voting into the strataphere because they agree rather than because the comment has merit.
- tlrobinson 17y agoOops, I just upvoted your comment because I agree with you. Someone please counter balance with a downvote.
- stavrianos 17y agoMan, see now I want to upvote whoever downvoted this comment. Because it's hilarious.
- notaddicted 17y agoI think they should be used for disagreeing with things that are wrong.
- CGamesPlay 17y agoWhen does one get the privilege of downvoting?
- RiderOfGiraffes 17y agoAccording to the FAQ linked to from the bottom of the page, when you get enough karma. If you search you will find that this question has been asked many times before.
- die_sekte 17y agoApparently at one hundred and one karma.
- mattmaroon 17y agoThey almost exclusively are though. I think he was just pointing that out.
- thras 17y agoPersonally, I always downvote based upon human worth. Upvotes? Only if I think you're hot.
- swolchok 17y agoIronically, this article violates its urge to "meta-discuss sparingly" by meta-discussing for a whole article. (Attempts to point out the same irony in this comment will suffer from the same problem.)
- gamache 17y agoI think the article counts as "sparing".
- anuraggoel 17y agoYou could add something to the effect of 'say nothing you wouldn't say to our face'.
- ErrantX 17y agoperhaps "say nothing rude you wouldn't say to my face". There are lots of constructing things you can contribute here which you might not want to say to someone in a live debate (Im thinking, for example, the drugs discussion that went on a while back) :D
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- rokhayakebe 17y agoDownvotes are nothing less than barbaric. You are hurting someone just because you disagree with their point of view.
- Tichy 17y agoIf the crowd does not vote up the prophet, the prophet shall vote up himself
- rms 17y agoIn clapping both hands a sound is heard: what is the sound of the one hand?
- tdavis 17y agoIt might be a personal thing, but I never submit anything I've personally written. I leave it to others to figure out if it warrants being on Hacker News. (in reference to posting stuff from one's own blog lines)
- hahadenny 17y agothis is good
- hahadenny 17y agotest
- hahadenny 17y ago?