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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 g

by 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.
- zorbo 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. If this were true, then why are downvoted comments faded? Because unpopular opinions don't need to be read by others? The downvote button is for noise that doesn't contribute to the discussion, but that doesn't break the rules. At least, that's what it's always been to me (regardless of what HN claims it's for).
- peterwwillis 12y ago
  Why do people post 'me too' or 'disagree'? They want their voice to be heard. Specifically, they want to voice their opinion that they agree or disagree with a comment. For most cases, this is pointless. It doesn't contribute to a conversation, it doesn't provide any context, and often it's more emotionally driven than anything else. But I get that you want to reduce the noise of unnecessary comments. Instead of confusing what a vote means to a user, why not provide meta-votes that reduce noise while allowing users to voice their opinions? Provide a series of buttons with default responses, and allow the comment box to be the 'Other:'. Record these responses and provide a tiny graphic next to a comment that indicates some value based on the accumulated opinions of users. What this would give you is the ability to change sorting based on emotional and/or intellectual feedback. If you have a sub-thread that has 200+ intellectual feedback, you could float it up to the top of the stack, and keep emotional feedback as a lower priority. People would be able to express themselves clearly and you could disagree with someone morally while ceding that they may have a valid argument. But this is probably a crazy idea, so feel free to downvote me ;)
- jack-r-abbit 12y ago
  Without a downvote button, offensive or mean comments would easily fall under the "B" option and get flagged (and I believe they should now anyway even with the downvote button). Obviously wrong or stupid comments would probably sink to the bottom pretty quickly anyway if people were upvoting the stuff that should be upvoted.
  - zanny 12y ago
couchand 12y ago
Very thoughtful post, and for the most part I agree with you. I would like to point out that making comments has a downvote effect on stories. I'm still not sure if that's the right answer (aren't interesting discussions the goal here?), but practically speaking, that's a factor to consider. If you're looking at a comment of case 'C' on a story that you actually quite like, there's a tension between the desire to clarify your disagreement and the desire to keep the story afloat. Perhaps this is one reason disagreement-cum-downvoting is so popular.
pash 12y ago
The primary effect of upvoting a submission is to make it sort higher relative to its present position; the main effect of a downvote is to make it sort lower. So downvotes are a mechanism to add information about your preferred (partial) ordering of comments in a thread. Upvotes alone only get you halfway there.
caf 12y ago
I tend to agree. I use downvotes very rarely, and only for cases where I feel the comment adds nothing substantial to the conversation (so, comments that are essentially contentless). One thing I do try to remember is to upvote comments that I disagree with, but are nonetheless well-argued or put an entirely reasonable point of view that however wrong I think it is still needs to be considered in the debate.

by zanny 12y ago

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.

zorbo 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. If this were true, then why are downvoted comments faded? Because unpopular opinions don't need to be read by others? The downvote button is for noise that doesn't contribute to the discussion, but that doesn't break the rules. At least, that's what it's always been to me (regardless of what HN claims it's for).
peterwwillis 12y ago
Why do people post 'me too' or 'disagree'? They want their voice to be heard. Specifically, they want to voice their opinion that they agree or disagree with a comment. For most cases, this is pointless. It doesn't contribute to a conversation, it doesn't provide any context, and often it's more emotionally driven than anything else. But I get that you want to reduce the noise of unnecessary comments. Instead of confusing what a vote means to a user, why not provide meta-votes that reduce noise while allowing users to voice their opinions? Provide a series of buttons with default responses, and allow the comment box to be the 'Other:'. Record these responses and provide a tiny graphic next to a comment that indicates some value based on the accumulated opinions of users. What this would give you is the ability to change sorting based on emotional and/or intellectual feedback. If you have a sub-thread that has 200+ intellectual feedback, you could float it up to the top of the stack, and keep emotional feedback as a lower priority. People would be able to express themselves clearly and you could disagree with someone morally while ceding that they may have a valid argument. But this is probably a crazy idea, so feel free to downvote me ;)
jack-r-abbit 12y ago
Without a downvote button, offensive or mean comments would easily fall under the "B" option and get flagged (and I believe they should now anyway even with the downvote button). Obviously wrong or stupid comments would probably sink to the bottom pretty quickly anyway if people were upvoting the stuff that should be upvoted.
- zanny 12y ago

couchand 12y ago

Very thoughtful post, and for the most part I agree with you. I would like to point out that making comments has a downvote effect on stories. I'm still not sure if that's the right answer (aren't interesting discussions the goal here?), but practically speaking, that's a factor to consider. If you're looking at a comment of case 'C' on a story that you actually quite like, there's a tension between the desire to clarify your disagreement and the desire to keep the story afloat. Perhaps this is one reason disagreement-cum-downvoting is so popular.

pash 12y ago

The primary effect of upvoting a submission is to make it sort higher relative to its present position; the main effect of a downvote is to make it sort lower. So downvotes are a mechanism to add information about your preferred (partial) ordering of comments in a thread. Upvotes alone only get you halfway there.

caf 12y ago

I tend to agree. I use downvotes very rarely, and only for cases where I feel the comment adds nothing substantial to the conversation (so, comments that are essentially contentless). One thing I do try to remember is to upvote comments that I disagree with, but are nonetheless well-argued or put an entirely reasonable point of view that however wrong I think it is still needs to be considered in the debate.