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For stories: I upvote only ones that I've completely read myself and found to be high-quality, and only after I've also read the comments (to make sure there ar

For stories: I upvote only ones that I've completely read myself and found to be high-quality, and only after I've also read the comments (to make sure there aren't any obvious inaccuracies or other problems with the story). For comments: I try to upvote ones that contribute to the discussion, but to be honest I do catch myself using it as an "I agree" button from time to time. My goal is to promote a high level of discourse, especially on both sides of controversial issues. I don't have enough reputation to have downvote powers yet, but when I get there I plan to use it sparingly. Codegeek's approach to downvoting (sibling to my comment) strikes me as a model to aspire to.

classicsnoot 12y ago
the 'upvote as agreement' stance seems pervasive, as well as largely justified. i wonder if having a selection of up-'s and down-'s might worthwhile.
- organsnyder 12y ago
  The problem is that the software uses a post's score to determine how it is displayed. Therefore, upvote-to-agree philosophy can have the effect of promoting the most popular opinions rather than the most well-argued ones. To make a real-world comparison: If this were an in-person forum, an up/downvote would be the equivalent of raising/lowering the volume of the speaker's microphone. As much as it is in our nature to do so, we don't want to simply raise the volume of the speakers whose views align with our own. In fact, we should be trying to do the opposite so that we can seek to learn—we have a lot more to learn from our detractors than from our adherents. If the score was simply displayed as a metric of who has expressed [dis]approval, then I'd agree with you. A system of specifying a reason for up/downvotes could accomplish this (i.e. maintain separate scores for the displayed count vs. the metric used to alter the comment's presentation), but the UI could get fairly convoluted.
  - classicsnoot 12y ago
    agreed on the UI clutter aspect. Thank you for the mic metaphor, it was excellent, i got the warm feeling of clarity in my gut as i read it.

classicsnoot 12y ago

the 'upvote as agreement' stance seems pervasive, as well as largely justified. i wonder if having a selection of up-'s and down-'s might worthwhile.

organsnyder 12y ago
The problem is that the software uses a post's score to determine how it is displayed. Therefore, upvote-to-agree philosophy can have the effect of promoting the most popular opinions rather than the most well-argued ones. To make a real-world comparison: If this were an in-person forum, an up/downvote would be the equivalent of raising/lowering the volume of the speaker's microphone. As much as it is in our nature to do so, we don't want to simply raise the volume of the speakers whose views align with our own. In fact, we should be trying to do the opposite so that we can seek to learn—we have a lot more to learn from our detractors than from our adherents. If the score was simply displayed as a metric of who has expressed [dis]approval, then I'd agree with you. A system of specifying a reason for up/downvotes could accomplish this (i.e. maintain separate scores for the displayed count vs. the metric used to alter the comment's presentation), but the UI could get fairly convoluted.
- classicsnoot 12y ago
  agreed on the UI clutter aspect. Thank you for the mic metaphor, it was excellent, i got the warm feeling of clarity in my gut as i read it.