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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

by 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.
      - GhotiFish 13y ago
        I'm not going to go through my whole freaking history to highlight the 5 times I've specifically marked where a downvote to disagree has happened on otherwise civil text. here: this was 15 days ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7381397 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7381397 > That's not true if most such comments get more upvotes than downvotes. so it's not true were training people to keep unpopular opinions to themselves, because if those opinions will also be upvoted... because why? Because people don't agree with them? What?
  - jsonne 13y ago
    Try expressing a conservative or religious opinion. I've gotten downvotes for both even though I haven't been the slightest bit rude. I enjoy hacker news, but at times it can really feel like a hivemind.
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.

by gruseom 13y ago

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.
    - GhotiFish 13y ago
      I'm not going to go through my whole freaking history to highlight the 5 times I've specifically marked where a downvote to disagree has happened on otherwise civil text. here: this was 15 days ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7381397 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7381397 > That's not true if most such comments get more upvotes than downvotes. so it's not true were training people to keep unpopular opinions to themselves, because if those opinions will also be upvoted... because why? Because people don't agree with them? What?
- jsonne 13y ago
  Try expressing a conservative or religious opinion. I've gotten downvotes for both even though I haven't been the slightest bit rude. I enjoy hacker news, but at times it can really feel like a hivemind.

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.