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Currently, the downvote button is only supposed to be used for unproductive comments - drivel, and the like. Of course, people use it to show their disagreement

by gruseom 13y ago

Currently, the downvote button is only supposed to be used for unproductive comments - drivel, and the like. Of course, people use it to show their disagreement (even though that's not how it's meant to be used). No, that's wrong. Downvoting for disagreement is how downvoting is meant to be used, as pg has made clear on HN many times over the years. [I edited the previous sentence to make it less ambiguous.] The confusion persists because Reddit's rules are different, and people remember those and mistakenly assume they apply to HN.

ihuman 13y ago
I'm a bit confused by the wording of your comment. Are you saying that downvoting "is only supposed to be used for unproductive comments" or to show agreement? You use "it," but I can't tell which statement you are referring to.
- gruseom 13y ago
  Sorry for being unclear. What I mean is that downvoting something because you disagree with it has always been legitimate on HN. I'm too lazy to dig up the many links where this was discussed, but the point is that if upvoting is a legit way to agree, then downvoting is a legit way to disagree. This is a good thing, because it provides a silent way to disagree when you don't have anything substantive to add to the discussion. The idea that downvoting for disagreement is not legitimate is a classic instance of the canonical invasive species on HN, the Redditism.
  - jessriedel 13y ago
    There is very little value in knowing that some people disagree with a comment, but there is tremendous value in learning other ideas. This is a bad policy.
    - gruseom 13y ago
      That's a good point. But let me ask you: do you think HN actually has this problem, i.e. of ideas being suppressed because people disagree? If so, I'd be curious to see examples. Most of the downvoted stuff I see has some other readily available explanation; usually some form of rudeness.
      - jessriedel 13y ago
        It's not about being suppressed in an active way. For the problem I'm talking about, it's completely sufficient for the disagreed-with posts to simply not rise to the top of the discussion. Remember, HN doesn't even show the vote counts on posts, so you can't extract hardly any agreement-disagreement info from a post (other than it's not so bad as to be downvoted to oblivion). The true and important function of the votes is to control visibility.
      - GhotiFish 13y ago
        I see it a lot. What's worse is up and down votes are a corrective mechanism. If you get downvoted, that kinda feels bad, if you get upvoted, that kinda feels good. It shapes your discussion and teaches you the rules of what the community finds acceptable/unacceptable. What is the honest to god pragmatic result of this policy? You're training people not to say something others disagree with. Even if you don't agree with that, downvote to disagree causes pragmatic problems outside of training! Consider a discussion where someone starts off with an unpopular view, and then an interesting discussion happens back and forth between two parties discussing that position. Downvote to disagree hides that discussion.
        gruseom 13y ago
        > I see it a lot If so, you should be able to find three examples. Can I please see them? Specifically, three comments that aren't in any way rude, downvoted for expressing an unpopular view? The reason I'm curious is that I try to watch out for that, yet have only seen one comment recently which seemed to me downvoted purely for expressing an unpopular opinion, and even it was somewhat borderline. > You're training people not to say something others disagree with. That's not true if most such comments get more upvotes than downvotes.
  - dinkumthinkum 13y ago
    I think you're wrong and are just trying up make some claim about Reddit. I don't think it is as simple as "upvoting in agreement is legitimate therefore the converse is true." Down voting as the effect of removing the comment from discussion and is even used to indicate there is something unfair, mean, or what have you. I think what you're talking is more for a site that shows the scores of comments but does not obscure them.
    - gruseom 13y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658691 http://www.reddit.com/wiki/reddiquette http://www.reddit.com/wiki/reddiquette https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law
      - dinkumthinkum 13y ago
        Yeah I know you can find pg quotes about this. Does that make it true? If that's the case then you win. However, if you want to use reason, it is clearly the case that under this view then the voting and karma is a misnomer and little more than a way to stifle dissent. It's good thing, I think, that most don't hold this view.
        gruseom 13y ago
        > Does that make it true? It makes it true that it's the site policy, yes.
  - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
    >downvoting something because you disagree with it has always been legitimate on HN // Um, no. You downvote when a comment doesn't contribute. If you disagree then you can state it and if that contributes it can get upvoted too.
    - gruseom 13y ago
      I'm talking about what the HN policy has always been. This is a factual question, and it's not as you describe it. What's interesting is how the opposite gets repeated far more often, usually in an authoritative tone, as if the speaker had just consulted a rulebook.
      - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
        TBH that's the only use of votes I've seen agreed on as valid here. Despite your relative long-standing I'll bow to your claim of factuality and request citation of that fact?
        gruseom 13y ago
        Do the first two links I listed here count? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7451438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7451438 I wouldn't say it's ever been agreed on; I'm pretty sure people disagreed about this from day one. And downvoted each other about it :)
        pbhjpbhj 13y ago
        Both of those links (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117118 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117118 [actually 117171 for the pg comment], https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658683 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658683) appear to be simply pg saying people do downvote when they disagree rather than him endorsing that activity. Indeed the first link says in part: >"I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement." Which reads to me as having an implicit "also to express agreement" especially in the context of the thread. The thread consensus appears to favour not downvoting for mere disagreement (but I would say that !). In the past when we had votes visible we'd have been able to tell better the general consensus from that information. So, I upvoted you for making your point well; presumably you downvoted me as you disagreed.
- Crito 13y ago
  Here are two PG comments with slightly different takes on downvoting to signal disagreeing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1006589#up_1006808 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1006589#up_1006808 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658683#up_658691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658683#up_658691 My takeaway has been that HN does not have Reddit's "don't downvote people just because you think that they are wrong" rule. Interestingly, PG's observation that people do not tend to downvote people who's comments are already gray does not seem to be true at all on reddit.
  - e12e 13y ago
    I've always thought that downvoting was for things that didn't contribute, and for things that were technically wrong (including logical fallacies and similar). However, disagreeing on opinion doesn't strike me as an area (on HN or otherwise) where downvoting makes sense. So downvoting "1TB of data can easily be uploaded over a 20Mbps connection" (Takes 4.8 days, versus a 20 MegaBytes ps connection, which takes ~14 hours and while not easy, is at least more feasible) -- should be ok. But a comment with correction would normally be better... Downvoting someone for saying that they prefer working in Eclipse (just because I prefer vim) doesn't seem very useful?
    - Crito 13y ago
      I don't think that the line between "I disagree with your opinion" and "I think this is incorrect" is always clear, particularly when new theories or analysis is being floated. As examples: If I state that "chocolate is better than vanilla", and you disagree with me, it's not really that you think I am incorrect; you simply just disagree with me. However if I state that I think "[country] will do [something] in Crimea", then you might disagree with me because you do think that I am incorrect. However in that case, because my statement was speculative, there isn't a strong sense of "objectively correct or incorrect". I think that most 'disagreements' in online conversations are closer to the second than the first.
    - DanBC 13y ago
      Downvoting someone saying they prefer some text editor is useful because those conversations are often very dull. Downvoting the incorrect post is valid but as you say it would be more useful to provide a correction post.
tripzilch 13y ago
> Downvoting for disagreement is how downvoting is meant to be used Ha! I am so downvoting this comment, because I disagree with it. (but but but ... yeah figure it out)
jessriedel 13y ago
pg is wrong on this.

by gruseom 13y ago

ihuman 13y ago

I'm a bit confused by the wording of your comment. Are you saying that downvoting "is only supposed to be used for unproductive comments" or to show agreement? You use "it," but I can't tell which statement you are referring to.

gruseom 13y ago
Sorry for being unclear. What I mean is that downvoting something because you disagree with it has always been legitimate on HN. I'm too lazy to dig up the many links where this was discussed, but the point is that if upvoting is a legit way to agree, then downvoting is a legit way to disagree. This is a good thing, because it provides a silent way to disagree when you don't have anything substantive to add to the discussion. The idea that downvoting for disagreement is not legitimate is a classic instance of the canonical invasive species on HN, the Redditism.
- jessriedel 13y ago
  There is very little value in knowing that some people disagree with a comment, but there is tremendous value in learning other ideas. This is a bad policy.
  - gruseom 13y ago
    That's a good point. But let me ask you: do you think HN actually has this problem, i.e. of ideas being suppressed because people disagree? If so, I'd be curious to see examples. Most of the downvoted stuff I see has some other readily available explanation; usually some form of rudeness.
    - jessriedel 13y ago
      It's not about being suppressed in an active way. For the problem I'm talking about, it's completely sufficient for the disagreed-with posts to simply not rise to the top of the discussion. Remember, HN doesn't even show the vote counts on posts, so you can't extract hardly any agreement-disagreement info from a post (other than it's not so bad as to be downvoted to oblivion). The true and important function of the votes is to control visibility.
    - GhotiFish 13y ago
      I see it a lot. What's worse is up and down votes are a corrective mechanism. If you get downvoted, that kinda feels bad, if you get upvoted, that kinda feels good. It shapes your discussion and teaches you the rules of what the community finds acceptable/unacceptable. What is the honest to god pragmatic result of this policy? You're training people not to say something others disagree with. Even if you don't agree with that, downvote to disagree causes pragmatic problems outside of training! Consider a discussion where someone starts off with an unpopular view, and then an interesting discussion happens back and forth between two parties discussing that position. Downvote to disagree hides that discussion.
      - gruseom 13y ago
        > I see it a lot If so, you should be able to find three examples. Can I please see them? Specifically, three comments that aren't in any way rude, downvoted for expressing an unpopular view? The reason I'm curious is that I try to watch out for that, yet have only seen one comment recently which seemed to me downvoted purely for expressing an unpopular opinion, and even it was somewhat borderline. > You're training people not to say something others disagree with. That's not true if most such comments get more upvotes than downvotes.
- dinkumthinkum 13y ago
  I think you're wrong and are just trying up make some claim about Reddit. I don't think it is as simple as "upvoting in agreement is legitimate therefore the converse is true." Down voting as the effect of removing the comment from discussion and is even used to indicate there is something unfair, mean, or what have you. I think what you're talking is more for a site that shows the scores of comments but does not obscure them.
  - gruseom 13y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658691 http://www.reddit.com/wiki/reddiquette http://www.reddit.com/wiki/reddiquette https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law
    - dinkumthinkum 13y ago
      Yeah I know you can find pg quotes about this. Does that make it true? If that's the case then you win. However, if you want to use reason, it is clearly the case that under this view then the voting and karma is a misnomer and little more than a way to stifle dissent. It's good thing, I think, that most don't hold this view.
      - gruseom 13y ago
        > Does that make it true? It makes it true that it's the site policy, yes.
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  >downvoting something because you disagree with it has always been legitimate on HN // Um, no. You downvote when a comment doesn't contribute. If you disagree then you can state it and if that contributes it can get upvoted too.
  - gruseom 13y ago
    I'm talking about what the HN policy has always been. This is a factual question, and it's not as you describe it. What's interesting is how the opposite gets repeated far more often, usually in an authoritative tone, as if the speaker had just consulted a rulebook.
    - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
      TBH that's the only use of votes I've seen agreed on as valid here. Despite your relative long-standing I'll bow to your claim of factuality and request citation of that fact?
      - gruseom 13y ago
        Do the first two links I listed here count? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7451438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7451438 I wouldn't say it's ever been agreed on; I'm pretty sure people disagreed about this from day one. And downvoted each other about it :)
        pbhjpbhj 13y ago
        Both of those links (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117118 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117118 [actually 117171 for the pg comment], https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658683 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658683) appear to be simply pg saying people do downvote when they disagree rather than him endorsing that activity. Indeed the first link says in part: >"I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement." Which reads to me as having an implicit "also to express agreement" especially in the context of the thread. The thread consensus appears to favour not downvoting for mere disagreement (but I would say that !). In the past when we had votes visible we'd have been able to tell better the general consensus from that information. So, I upvoted you for making your point well; presumably you downvoted me as you disagreed.
Crito 13y ago
Here are two PG comments with slightly different takes on downvoting to signal disagreeing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1006589#up_1006808 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1006589#up_1006808 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658683#up_658691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658683#up_658691 My takeaway has been that HN does not have Reddit's "don't downvote people just because you think that they are wrong" rule. Interestingly, PG's observation that people do not tend to downvote people who's comments are already gray does not seem to be true at all on reddit.
- e12e 13y ago
  I've always thought that downvoting was for things that didn't contribute, and for things that were technically wrong (including logical fallacies and similar). However, disagreeing on opinion doesn't strike me as an area (on HN or otherwise) where downvoting makes sense. So downvoting "1TB of data can easily be uploaded over a 20Mbps connection" (Takes 4.8 days, versus a 20 MegaBytes ps connection, which takes ~14 hours and while not easy, is at least more feasible) -- should be ok. But a comment with correction would normally be better... Downvoting someone for saying that they prefer working in Eclipse (just because I prefer vim) doesn't seem very useful?
  - Crito 13y ago
    I don't think that the line between "I disagree with your opinion" and "I think this is incorrect" is always clear, particularly when new theories or analysis is being floated. As examples: If I state that "chocolate is better than vanilla", and you disagree with me, it's not really that you think I am incorrect; you simply just disagree with me. However if I state that I think "[country] will do [something] in Crimea", then you might disagree with me because you do think that I am incorrect. However in that case, because my statement was speculative, there isn't a strong sense of "objectively correct or incorrect". I think that most 'disagreements' in online conversations are closer to the second than the first.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    Downvoting someone saying they prefer some text editor is useful because those conversations are often very dull. Downvoting the incorrect post is valid but as you say it would be more useful to provide a correction post.

tripzilch 13y ago

> Downvoting for disagreement is how downvoting is meant to be used Ha! I am so downvoting this comment, because I disagree with it. (but but but ... yeah figure it out)

jessriedel 13y ago

pg is wrong on this.