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Right; that was intended to mean that people sometimes use them for disagreement, despite that they probably shouldn't. Any thoughts on a better wording?

by mcav 17y ago

RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
Disagree by constructive counter-comment, reserve down-mods for disapproval.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
gizmo 17y ago
Without 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 ago
Actually, 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 ago
  This 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 ago
    It'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 ago
  Are there any communities where this ideal has been met with a simple voting system?
- gojomo 17y ago
  I 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.
  - jodrellblank 17y ago
    Unfortunately, with the UI and people's natural tendencies, it's unavoidable that votes be used for quick-and-easy agreement/disagreement. At the moment yes, but why not: Agree/Disagree Good contribution/Poor Contribution. Instead of just up/down.
    - gojomo 17y ago
      Yes, that's exactly what I've suggested before: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=214521 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=214521 I know it'd be a challenge to work in without clutter/confusion, but by -- (1) achieving some visual separation from up/down (perhaps by placing to the right, or near 'reply'); (2) keeping it faded/invisible until mouseover; (3) displaying the total subtly, as with a sparkline -- I think it could work. The controls on Twitter web pages for favorite/reply/delete are an example of the state-of-the-art for unobtrusive per-item operational controls.
- demallien 17y ago
  It would help if, instead of the ambiguous up and down arrow icons, the ui provided something like a bulb to mark an interesting idea, and a zzzz to represent a waste of time - or something like that. In the end, people can't help themselves, they want to express agreement/disagreement, so you'd still get some people using the buttons that way, but at least the ui would communicate the desired use.
  - Dilpil 17y ago
    Perhaps the downvoting icon should be one of those old 90s toy trolls, and the upvote icon a light bulb or something similar.
- Confusion 17y ago
  Nobody goes around upvoting every civil comment that feeds the conversation constructively: there are too many of those and they are various in quality. Nobody goes around downvoting every comment he disagrees with: there are also too many of those. Agreement/disagreement and civil/uncivil aren't the only scales involved and thinking about it in that way leads to simplistic judgments. I upvote comments that I find valuable. That may mean I learned something from the comment, but it may also mean that I think others may learn something from it. If someone makes a point that I would have made otherwise: upvote. In some sense that means I 'agree' with the comment, but if someone simply relates facts, than the upvote means 'this is relevant information'. In a non-factual case it may mean 'this is an opinion/argument that people should take note of'. Tying votes with agreement leads to groupthink Untying votes from agreement leads to no votes at all. When you upvote a comment, you by definition 'agree' that it was a proper comment. Without agreement on the 'rightness' of comments, there is no reason to upvote any comment at all. I don't understand this fear of 'groupthink'. It is perfectly clear what comments will get you a lot of karma. The fact that we don't make those comments isn't because they aren't upvoted: it's because we aren't interested in karma.
swombat 17y ago
Upvotes mark value Downvotes mark lack of value Downvotes should be far more rare than upvotes
- pygy 17y ago
  Four legs good, two legs bad. If you simplify too much you're at risk of losing the original intent.
- jodrellblank 17y ago
  I downvote more than upvote because it's easier to pick on one or two comments to downvote than tens to upvote.
- frossie 17y ago
  My 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 ago
  We perceive what we agree with to be of higher value. Confirmation bias.
IsaacSchlueter 17y ago
Regardless 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 ago
  We 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?

Right; that was intended to mean that people sometimes use them for disagreement, despite that they probably shouldn't. Any thoughts on a better wording?

by mcav 17y ago

Right; 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 ago

Disagree by constructive counter-comment, reserve down-mods for disapproval.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

gizmo 17y ago

Without 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 ago

Actually, 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 ago
This 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 ago
  It'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 ago
Are there any communities where this ideal has been met with a simple voting system?
gojomo 17y ago
I 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.
- jodrellblank 17y ago
  Unfortunately, with the UI and people's natural tendencies, it's unavoidable that votes be used for quick-and-easy agreement/disagreement. At the moment yes, but why not: Agree/Disagree Good contribution/Poor Contribution. Instead of just up/down.
  - gojomo 17y ago
    Yes, that's exactly what I've suggested before: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=214521 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=214521 I know it'd be a challenge to work in without clutter/confusion, but by -- (1) achieving some visual separation from up/down (perhaps by placing to the right, or near 'reply'); (2) keeping it faded/invisible until mouseover; (3) displaying the total subtly, as with a sparkline -- I think it could work. The controls on Twitter web pages for favorite/reply/delete are an example of the state-of-the-art for unobtrusive per-item operational controls.
demallien 17y ago
It would help if, instead of the ambiguous up and down arrow icons, the ui provided something like a bulb to mark an interesting idea, and a zzzz to represent a waste of time - or something like that. In the end, people can't help themselves, they want to express agreement/disagreement, so you'd still get some people using the buttons that way, but at least the ui would communicate the desired use.
- Dilpil 17y ago
  Perhaps the downvoting icon should be one of those old 90s toy trolls, and the upvote icon a light bulb or something similar.
Confusion 17y ago
Nobody goes around upvoting every civil comment that feeds the conversation constructively: there are too many of those and they are various in quality. Nobody goes around downvoting every comment he disagrees with: there are also too many of those. Agreement/disagreement and civil/uncivil aren't the only scales involved and thinking about it in that way leads to simplistic judgments. I upvote comments that I find valuable. That may mean I learned something from the comment, but it may also mean that I think others may learn something from it. If someone makes a point that I would have made otherwise: upvote. In some sense that means I 'agree' with the comment, but if someone simply relates facts, than the upvote means 'this is relevant information'. In a non-factual case it may mean 'this is an opinion/argument that people should take note of'. Tying votes with agreement leads to groupthink Untying votes from agreement leads to no votes at all. When you upvote a comment, you by definition 'agree' that it was a proper comment. Without agreement on the 'rightness' of comments, there is no reason to upvote any comment at all. I don't understand this fear of 'groupthink'. It is perfectly clear what comments will get you a lot of karma. The fact that we don't make those comments isn't because they aren't upvoted: it's because we aren't interested in karma.

swombat 17y ago

Upvotes mark value Downvotes mark lack of value Downvotes should be far more rare than upvotes

pygy 17y ago
Four legs good, two legs bad. If you simplify too much you're at risk of losing the original intent.
jodrellblank 17y ago
I downvote more than upvote because it's easier to pick on one or two comments to downvote than tens to upvote.
frossie 17y ago
My 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 ago
We perceive what we agree with to be of higher value. Confirmation bias.

IsaacSchlueter 17y ago

Regardless 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 ago
We 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?