5 ms·

Flagging seems like the solution to toxic comments, and should be more encouraged. At the same time, this means it overlaps with downvoting—but only one use of

by tikhonj 12y ago

Flagging seems like the solution to toxic comments, and should be more encouraged. At the same time, this means it overlaps with downvoting—but only one use of downvoting. Really, the meaning of downvoting on HN is somewhat confused and muddled: is it a "flag lite"? Is it a way of disagreeing? Is it a way to push worse content to the bottom? Is it just the opposite of an upvote? Any one of these would be reasonable, but having all at the same time is not great. But that's exactly what we have now, both in the design of the feature and in how it gets used in practice. Personally, I think downvoting should move away from being an alternate form of flagging (with flagging, perhaps, taking a slightly more prominent role for dealing with actual abuse) and more towards just being the opposite of an upvote. This still makes it a bit of a hybrid (both for moving bad content down and disagreeing), but one that makes a lot more sense because it works just like upvotes do. For one, this is what the interface already implies. The downvote button looks just like the upvote button upside down. Seeing the two as exact opposites is entirely natural, and that's how it plays out in terms of karma too. But in terms of social conventions and, importantly, greying out comments, this doesn't quite hold. I also think that some symmetric way to counterbalance upvotes is actually useful in and of itself: downvotes can offset comments that gain a lot of upvotes before getting a strong rebuttal or comments stuck at the top of a discussion because of other quirks in the system. But people now seem pretty hesitant to use them this way. Which makes sense: if downvotes are, in part, mini-flags, they are too strong just to indicate that you think something has been upvoted too much or is not a particularly good comment (without being bad or abusive). So what would I do? Well, from the site's perspective, the main tweak is greying out comments after more than one downvote. Still have the votes change the order, but only have a really visible effect after a few have accumulated. More importantly, from a social perspective, it would be good to reach consensus on what a downvote actually entails, namely that it's just the opposite of an upvote, neither more nor less. Disentangling flags and downvotes like this will improve the utility of both features by making them more focused. Downvotes can be a symmetric force in shaping discussion while flags could be pushed a bit more as means of pruning actively harmful comments.

doorhammer 12y ago
The question I'd have about a downvote being opposite of an upvote is what is an upvote supposed to be for? I mean that as an honest question. Is it because it's something I like? Is it because I think it adds value to the conversation (usually why I upvote)? I've never seen guidlines for voting either way. The flag guidelines also seem pretty hazy (spam or offtopic [1]). Of course, that could be totally intentional, and I'm not implying it's a bad way to do things. They might not want to nail down the upvote/downvote idea so much and just let them represent a general will of the readers instead of getting into semantic debates over guidelines. Just a few things I'm curious about.
- enobrev 12y ago
  I figure that's up to the voters. Personally I upvote things I disagree with all the time, provided the comment presents a compelling argument worth considering. As for downvotes, it's never due to disagreement for me - only in times I find a comment to be unnecessarily negative, personal, or the opposite of "a compelling argument worth considering".
  - doorhammer 12y ago
    Yeah, this is how I generally approach it. I don't care if I agree with someone. I just want them to provide more information and add some value to the discussion. If the information is invalid, I just do what I can to provide counter resources. I also generally try to approach downvotes the way you're saying as well, though that brings us back to downvotes being "mini flags". I don't know that I disagree with that. Mostly just bringing up that upvotes and downvotes aren't really defined. They represent the general unspoken opinion of the people voting, which I think is fine.
    - astrobe_ 12y ago
      AFAIK upvoting a story is the only way to save it in your profile. I believe that this 'bookmarking' side-effect can induce a good measure of the value of a comment as well (one would have to kill the personal comments history page for maximum effect, though).
zanny 12y ago
My position is that downvotes should not exist. There are three ways to view posts and comments: A. you agree with it, and appreciate it, so you upvote it to give it more visibility because that is how this whole system works - popular stuff should rise to the top, and an upvote is a measure of popularity. If you see popular stuff but have something to add, you will usually upvote and comment on it. B. a comment or post is a violation of site rules, and should be reported. You flag these and leave it up to moderators to deal with it. C. you disagree with a comment or submission. If you are given a downvote button, people will often just downvote the stuff they do not like and leave it at that. But that is antithesis to discussion, and it is a very real problem on reddit, where users often use downvotes as a substitution to real debate or testing ones beliefs or knowledge. The correct answer is to reply why you dislike a comment, and try to start a discussion on it. If it is not violating site rules (and trolling can be, depending on site, one of those rules) then it is your duty to inform the poster why they are wrong. Downvoting is a cop out to take the truly controversial topics that make for the better discussions out of consideration, and that is why you get an echo chamber - when you only have upvotes, if there are three opinions, then those three will be ranked by popularity. If you have downvotes, only the most popular opinion will ever show up because not only is it upvoted the most but the other two are downvoted off the site and those with dissenting beliefs just leave. And then you end up with the echo chamber and no real discussion left. I think that is why HN gets higher quality, in the general case, than most subreddits around technology. They have downvote buttons that naturally turn their communities into hive minds, whereas here you have to actually contribute a bit to get that power. I'd rather see it removed entirely, tbh.
- lotharbot 12y ago
  One thing we try to discourage on HN is "me too" or "disagree" posts that don't have much more content. The presence of upvote and downvote buttons means that those comments don't get made, because votes serve that purpose instead. There's still room to start a discussion if you have a specific point to make (and the desire to make it) about the problems with someone's comments. Those discussions do tend to happen when someone makes a disagreeable but thoughtful point. But sometimes it's just better to throw a downvote at an obviously wrong (or stupid or offensive or mean) comment and move on.
pash 12y ago
I try to use upvoting and downvoting to massage comments (and comment threads) into a sorting I like better, which seems similar to your philosophy. I upvote particularly insightful comments, or those that I think will lead to an interesting discussion; I downvote comments that I think are particularly inane, and I sometimes downvote comments and threads that I think are commanding too much attention at the expense of a better discussion further down the page. Our view makes sense, since the sorting effect is the main one that readers see, but it's somewhat problematic because the effects of upvoting and downvoting on the display order of comments within a thread are mixed up with harsh punitive effects at the user-level (hellbanning) and with sorting effects at the submission-level that don't align with our benign intentions—e.g., a submission whose comment thread has attracted many downvoted gets dropped on the front page, so downvotes are not an otherwise neutral inverse of an upvote. It makes sense, if this view of upvoting and downvoting as a "sort higher/sort lower" command is widely held, to separate out (or water down) the punitive and submission-level effects of downvoting a comment, possibly transferring those to flags instead.

by tikhonj 12y ago

doorhammer 12y ago

The question I'd have about a downvote being opposite of an upvote is what is an upvote supposed to be for? I mean that as an honest question. Is it because it's something I like? Is it because I think it adds value to the conversation (usually why I upvote)? I've never seen guidlines for voting either way. The flag guidelines also seem pretty hazy (spam or offtopic [1]). Of course, that could be totally intentional, and I'm not implying it's a bad way to do things. They might not want to nail down the upvote/downvote idea so much and just let them represent a general will of the readers instead of getting into semantic debates over guidelines. Just a few things I'm curious about.

enobrev 12y ago
I figure that's up to the voters. Personally I upvote things I disagree with all the time, provided the comment presents a compelling argument worth considering. As for downvotes, it's never due to disagreement for me - only in times I find a comment to be unnecessarily negative, personal, or the opposite of "a compelling argument worth considering".
- doorhammer 12y ago
  Yeah, this is how I generally approach it. I don't care if I agree with someone. I just want them to provide more information and add some value to the discussion. If the information is invalid, I just do what I can to provide counter resources. I also generally try to approach downvotes the way you're saying as well, though that brings us back to downvotes being "mini flags". I don't know that I disagree with that. Mostly just bringing up that upvotes and downvotes aren't really defined. They represent the general unspoken opinion of the people voting, which I think is fine.
  - astrobe_ 12y ago
    AFAIK upvoting a story is the only way to save it in your profile. I believe that this 'bookmarking' side-effect can induce a good measure of the value of a comment as well (one would have to kill the personal comments history page for maximum effect, though).

zanny 12y ago

My position is that downvotes should not exist. There are three ways to view posts and comments: A. you agree with it, and appreciate it, so you upvote it to give it more visibility because that is how this whole system works - popular stuff should rise to the top, and an upvote is a measure of popularity. If you see popular stuff but have something to add, you will usually upvote and comment on it. B. a comment or post is a violation of site rules, and should be reported. You flag these and leave it up to moderators to deal with it. C. you disagree with a comment or submission. If you are given a downvote button, people will often just downvote the stuff they do not like and leave it at that. But that is antithesis to discussion, and it is a very real problem on reddit, where users often use downvotes as a substitution to real debate or testing ones beliefs or knowledge. The correct answer is to reply why you dislike a comment, and try to start a discussion on it. If it is not violating site rules (and trolling can be, depending on site, one of those rules) then it is your duty to inform the poster why they are wrong. Downvoting is a cop out to take the truly controversial topics that make for the better discussions out of consideration, and that is why you get an echo chamber - when you only have upvotes, if there are three opinions, then those three will be ranked by popularity. If you have downvotes, only the most popular opinion will ever show up because not only is it upvoted the most but the other two are downvoted off the site and those with dissenting beliefs just leave. And then you end up with the echo chamber and no real discussion left. I think that is why HN gets higher quality, in the general case, than most subreddits around technology. They have downvote buttons that naturally turn their communities into hive minds, whereas here you have to actually contribute a bit to get that power. I'd rather see it removed entirely, tbh.

lotharbot 12y ago
One thing we try to discourage on HN is "me too" or "disagree" posts that don't have much more content. The presence of upvote and downvote buttons means that those comments don't get made, because votes serve that purpose instead. There's still room to start a discussion if you have a specific point to make (and the desire to make it) about the problems with someone's comments. Those discussions do tend to happen when someone makes a disagreeable but thoughtful point. But sometimes it's just better to throw a downvote at an obviously wrong (or stupid or offensive or mean) comment and move on.

pash 12y ago

I try to use upvoting and downvoting to massage comments (and comment threads) into a sorting I like better, which seems similar to your philosophy. I upvote particularly insightful comments, or those that I think will lead to an interesting discussion; I downvote comments that I think are particularly inane, and I sometimes downvote comments and threads that I think are commanding too much attention at the expense of a better discussion further down the page. Our view makes sense, since the sorting effect is the main one that readers see, but it's somewhat problematic because the effects of upvoting and downvoting on the display order of comments within a thread are mixed up with harsh punitive effects at the user-level (hellbanning) and with sorting effects at the submission-level that don't align with our benign intentions—e.g., a submission whose comment thread has attracted many downvoted gets dropped on the front page, so downvotes are not an otherwise neutral inverse of an upvote. It makes sense, if this view of upvoting and downvoting as a "sort higher/sort lower" command is widely held, to separate out (or water down) the punitive and submission-level effects of downvoting a comment, possibly transferring those to flags instead.