4 ms·

Wow, this interferes with key elements of my system for voting/commenting on HN. Here are some things that don't work now: * If a comment is sitting at 1 or 0

by tc 17y ago

Wow, this interferes with key elements of my system for voting/commenting on HN. Here are some things that don't work now: * If a comment is sitting at 1 or 0, I'll try to avoid downvoting it unless I really think the comment subtracts value from the site. * If a child is attracting more votes than the parent, and I think this is because the child commenter didn't comprehend what the parent was saying, I vote to level out the comments. * If I see a comment sitting in negative territory that I feel should only be a 0 or 1 because it wasn't that bad, I'll upvote it even if I otherwise wouldn't have. * If a thread is already dominated by a couple of high-scoring comments, relative to its age, I'm less likely to post a new top level comment. My feeling is that if a good comment just sits at the bottom because it arrived slightly too late, I've only added noise to the thread. The lack of visible points makes it much harder to gauge how a new comment will 'compete' on the thread. * If the scores indicate that something is being widely misunderstood, I might comment where I otherwise would not have to try to restore sanity. Of course, if this change were to stick, it would alter the character of the site, and we would all develop new voting and commenting systems. I can already tell that this change magnifies my tendency to vote with an eye toward reordering comments rather than voting on each comment in relative isolation.

pg 17y ago
Voting patterns showed a lot of users voted to get a comment to what they felt was an appropriate score: they wouldn't up- or downvote something unless they felt its current score was too low or high respectively. But if comment scores aren't displayed, you won't need to anymore.
- netsp 17y ago
  You don't think that this is a good thing?
- tc 17y ago
  Hmmm... I always considered that a feature rather than a bug. Only voting when the scores looked "wrong" was an optimization. How do I decide when to vote now? I have a feeling I'm going to settle into a pattern of voting to reorder comments and that I'm going to vote less overall.
  - nandemo 17y ago
    I also considered that a feature. I have 3 choices: -1, 0 and 1, and almost always I choose 0. I do think that people make too much of karma and comments scores. But I don't understand why pg thinks this particular aspect is an improvement.
    - sev 17y ago
      I can see why the change is for the better: my vote (-1, 0, 1) should not be skewed/altered based on past events (others voting). Also, an "appropriate" total vote count is not something that an individual should be determining; it should be a collective thought. The only thing an individual should decide on is whether to award the comment a -1/0/1 purely based on the comment, nothing more. This change removes everything else (or so we assume: but considering the fact that the position on the page is still modified, it's not perfect, but it's close enough in my book).
      - borism 17y ago
        "The only thing an individual should decide on is whether to award the comment a -1/0/1 purely based on the comment, nothing more." exactly
      - deleted 17y ago
        [deleted]
    - jacquesm 17y ago
      Since global karma (your collected karma over time) does not have any real function in the site as far as I can see you could lose it completely and not much of value would be lost, the way to look at it now is more 'relative', if you see a comment thread with a comment directly above the comment you're looking at that you think contributes less than the comment below it vote to lower one up. After all, the biggest function by far of the votes is to influence the sort order, so the good stuff gets read by the people that skim. A vote is like a little bit of editorial power, you get to have a say in what goes 'above the fold'.
  - skolor 17y ago
- blasdel 17y ago
  You're discounting the effect of the age factor -- I don't downvote high-position low-score comments for reordering purposes because I know it'll probably decay down anyway. I don't want to be the asshat to drop a comment below 1, just because there's a better comment that's currently below it (but probably with more karma). At least from my usage, you'll see a net gain in karma inflation.
- gojomo 17y ago
  I think your previous guidance helped create the "vote toward a target score" behavior. You've spoken against piling-on voting, and your clipping of the negative range advances the idea: once a signal is 'far enough' in one direction, people should hold off. I can see ways hidden scores may work for or against extreme totals. On the one hand, without the satisfaction of seeing a vote take immediate effect, overall voting may go down. But on the other, without the indication that a comment is already 'far enough' in a desired direction, charged comments may rack up unprecedented positive or negative values. I hope you can share info about which effect predominates. I will miss the chance to quickly 'rescue' slightly-downvoted comments I don't particularly like or agree with, but feel have been unfairly squelched into nether-ratings by hair-trigger down-voters.
- kniwor 17y ago
  In fact I will go as far as to say that the ideal interface would be one that let me specify what the ideal score of every comment should be and my vote should be counted as an upvote if its below that value and a downvote if its above that...
  - gdee 17y ago
    That would be a star rating system then. Supposedly they work worse.
    - tome 17y ago
      No, star rating systems generally average. The GP's proposal is not the same.
  - tome 17y ago
    Yes I've had this idea before too. I also think that the votes should be applied to the score in reverse order of the time at which they were made. This means that those who vote earlier end up having more effect on the final score, rather than none at all, as would be the case otherwise.
- scott_s 17y ago
  I only did that with comments that went below 1 when I felt it was valid. Is that not expected behavior? (Although one can still do this because text color indicates it's gone negative.)
frossie 17y ago
It's interesting - I manfully tried for a bit, but my interest in voting seems to have evaporated with the numbers. Like tc, I often vote to "balance out" as much as to "join the mob". My prediction: comment voting will drop precipitously.
- billswift 17y ago
  My response is different. I find I'm voting more, without being able to "balance out" I am now tending to vote up more than before. I'm also downvoting more, though that hasn't changed as much as the upvoting.
  - unalone 17y ago
    One thing I don't like: The graying out of comments at 0 and -1. Your comment was gray when I came across it, and now that comes across as a very significant visual for judgment. I don't think a single voter should have the power to gray something out before anybody else has read it.

by tc 17y ago

pg 17y ago

Voting patterns showed a lot of users voted to get a comment to what they felt was an appropriate score: they wouldn't up- or downvote something unless they felt its current score was too low or high respectively. But if comment scores aren't displayed, you won't need to anymore.

netsp 17y ago
You don't think that this is a good thing?
tc 17y ago
Hmmm... I always considered that a feature rather than a bug. Only voting when the scores looked "wrong" was an optimization. How do I decide when to vote now? I have a feeling I'm going to settle into a pattern of voting to reorder comments and that I'm going to vote less overall.
- nandemo 17y ago
  I also considered that a feature. I have 3 choices: -1, 0 and 1, and almost always I choose 0. I do think that people make too much of karma and comments scores. But I don't understand why pg thinks this particular aspect is an improvement.
  - sev 17y ago
    I can see why the change is for the better: my vote (-1, 0, 1) should not be skewed/altered based on past events (others voting). Also, an "appropriate" total vote count is not something that an individual should be determining; it should be a collective thought. The only thing an individual should decide on is whether to award the comment a -1/0/1 purely based on the comment, nothing more. This change removes everything else (or so we assume: but considering the fact that the position on the page is still modified, it's not perfect, but it's close enough in my book).
    - borism 17y ago
      "The only thing an individual should decide on is whether to award the comment a -1/0/1 purely based on the comment, nothing more." exactly
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    Since global karma (your collected karma over time) does not have any real function in the site as far as I can see you could lose it completely and not much of value would be lost, the way to look at it now is more 'relative', if you see a comment thread with a comment directly above the comment you're looking at that you think contributes less than the comment below it vote to lower one up. After all, the biggest function by far of the votes is to influence the sort order, so the good stuff gets read by the people that skim. A vote is like a little bit of editorial power, you get to have a say in what goes 'above the fold'.
- skolor 17y ago
blasdel 17y ago
You're discounting the effect of the age factor -- I don't downvote high-position low-score comments for reordering purposes because I know it'll probably decay down anyway. I don't want to be the asshat to drop a comment below 1, just because there's a better comment that's currently below it (but probably with more karma). At least from my usage, you'll see a net gain in karma inflation.
gojomo 17y ago
I think your previous guidance helped create the "vote toward a target score" behavior. You've spoken against piling-on voting, and your clipping of the negative range advances the idea: once a signal is 'far enough' in one direction, people should hold off. I can see ways hidden scores may work for or against extreme totals. On the one hand, without the satisfaction of seeing a vote take immediate effect, overall voting may go down. But on the other, without the indication that a comment is already 'far enough' in a desired direction, charged comments may rack up unprecedented positive or negative values. I hope you can share info about which effect predominates. I will miss the chance to quickly 'rescue' slightly-downvoted comments I don't particularly like or agree with, but feel have been unfairly squelched into nether-ratings by hair-trigger down-voters.
kniwor 17y ago
In fact I will go as far as to say that the ideal interface would be one that let me specify what the ideal score of every comment should be and my vote should be counted as an upvote if its below that value and a downvote if its above that...
- gdee 17y ago
  That would be a star rating system then. Supposedly they work worse.
  - tome 17y ago
    No, star rating systems generally average. The GP's proposal is not the same.
- tome 17y ago
  Yes I've had this idea before too. I also think that the votes should be applied to the score in reverse order of the time at which they were made. This means that those who vote earlier end up having more effect on the final score, rather than none at all, as would be the case otherwise.
scott_s 17y ago
I only did that with comments that went below 1 when I felt it was valid. Is that not expected behavior? (Although one can still do this because text color indicates it's gone negative.)

frossie 17y ago

It's interesting - I manfully tried for a bit, but my interest in voting seems to have evaporated with the numbers. Like tc, I often vote to "balance out" as much as to "join the mob". My prediction: comment voting will drop precipitously.

billswift 17y ago
My response is different. I find I'm voting more, without being able to "balance out" I am now tending to vote up more than before. I'm also downvoting more, though that hasn't changed as much as the upvoting.
- unalone 17y ago
  One thing I don't like: The graying out of comments at 0 and -1. Your comment was gray when I came across it, and now that comes across as a very significant visual for judgment. I don't think a single voter should have the power to gray something out before anybody else has read it.