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I think the downvote functionality is holding back the utility of HN more than anything else. It is grossly overused and very rarely for guidelines violations l

I think the downvote functionality is holding back the utility of HN more than anything else. It is grossly overused and very rarely for guidelines violations like it was designed for. Most people use to show they disagree with a comment. It's an awful experience and is the main fuel in a negative feedback loop that travels with users from thread to thread.

dman 12y ago
I agree with this. Conflating disagreement with downvoting seems to be mixing unrelated concerns. It is currently inconvenient (in karma terms) to hold dissenting opinions.
- cheald 12y ago
  My experience tends to be that if you can hold a dissenting opinion respectfully, and back up your assertions, HN treats it favorably in the long run. Holding a dissenting opinion without being willing to defend it with awareness of your audience's hostility to your ideas rarely goes over well in any forum, though.
  - dman 12y ago
    Try saying anything critical about Apple and see if this strategy works out in practice.
    - reitanqild 12y ago
      I've been pointing out problems with Apple and seen little punishment. Then again I am kind of thoughtful when I do and often make sure to point out that I like Apple, and recommend it to others, -I just personally find their products annoying to use for specific reasons
    - bdcravens 12y ago
      I think true criticism is treated well (for example, discussing validity of walled garden in app store). It's the trollish comments, like calling Apple users sheep or ignorant hipsters that thrown money away, that are problematic.
    - smacktoward 12y ago
      I've been very critical of Apple in this forum, and it doesn't seem to have hurt my karma too much.
      - burger_moon 12y ago
        I think the topic is also important. Was the topic about a positive apple article, or a positive android or windows topic? You are more likely to draw a crowd that relates to the title's indicated company. Having a negative view point about windows is sure to get a better response in a topic that is praising an apple product. I'm making assumptions here on anecdotes of course.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
    - cheald 12y ago
      Well, I just checked, and my last comment critical of Apple (and not even charitably so) is currently at +97 karma, so I'm not quite sure the argument holds much weight.
      - dman 12y ago
        Thanks for taking the time to look into this. I am afraid it does not address the wider concern I have of which criticquing Apple is a specific example. On topics where there is a deep skew in the opinion held by the HN readerbase, it is probabilistically likely that going against the widely held view will receive more downvotes. This has a chilling effect on expressing dissent. Of course there will be people who will be able to mitigate this with their gravitas and eloquence. But it would be better if we can come up with a scheme where we lower the burden on people holding a dissenting opinion.
        DanBC 12y ago
        I've made many negative comments about Apple, Facebook, MS, Google, etc and did not receive downvotes for them. If HN is tribal then attacking one tribe while praising the others might be a method to farm positive karma.
      - malandrew 12y ago
        Exactly. Doing a poor job of critiquing Apple will garner downvotes. Writing a well-reasoned and supported argument critiquing Apple will get upvotes.
  - xienze 12y ago
    I think you're being a bit optimistic here. Downvotes will happen regardless of how well reasoned your argument is, and they'll come in a hurry if you hold an unpopular opinion on a sensitive/political subject. It's definitely my biggest gripe with HN -- there's too much of a political echo chamber here.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      > Downvotes will happen regardless of how well reasoned your argument is Some will, but its very rare that I've seen posts retain a net of negative moderation when they contribute substantially, regardless of the side of an issue they are on (though I've seen controversial-but-substantial comments quickly get heavily downvoted before recovering.) And I've seen this on every side of issues -- often to opposing posts in the same discussion -- so I don't think its an "echo-chamber" effect, but more that certain topics bringout more kneejerk negative responses from people on either side. (Its funny that, in regard to accusations of HN being an echo chamber or hivemind, I've seen various posters proclaim with confidence that it was -- and that that hivemind was, variously, liberal, leftist, libertarian, capitalist, pro-corporate, anti-corporate, and in support or opposition to various companies, and any of a number of other things. I think people are way to quick to equate some people disagreeing with or downvoting their posts to HN being a hivemind biased against them.)
    - cheald 12y ago
      My unpopular opinions frequently get early downvotes, but it seems that it'll swing back into the black given enough time/eyeballs, if I've made a good argument.
    - brudgers 12y ago
      Bad threads produce bad behavior. By definition. When I see it happening, I flag the thread. Sometimes despite wishing that there could be a positive discussion of the subject because the subject is relevant and important and intellectually interesting. I think "Maybe next time it comes up the comments won't devolve."
    - lotharbot 12y ago
      Of particular note, sometimes expressing an unpopular opinion on a sensitive subject (or a subject on which some people have very strong feelings, even if it's not sensitive to most people) can trigger a cascade of "revenge downvotes". So while the original comment might get upvoted back to positive, comments on completely unrelated topics might pick up undeserved downvotes. I once had a few week period where I noticed the majority of my comments drop by exactly 2 karma, usually around the same time of day, regardless of how many upvotes they'd received or how heavily trafficked the thread was. My best guess is that I'd upset two people (or one person with two accounts) and they kept clicking back on my profile until they got bored with it.
  - haberman 12y ago
    > My experience tends to be that if you can hold a dissenting opinion respectfully, and back up your assertions, HN treats it favorably in the long run. I think "in the long run" is key here. When I make a comment that challenges some band of partisans, but strikes a factual tone, my observations is that it initially gets downvotes (presumably from the partisans who are hovering over the thread/story), but in the end gets moderated highly.
- bengali3 12y ago
  Interesting, what if in downvoting a comment you had to pick a reason? What are all the reasons one would downvote something? "I do not agree" "I do not believe this adds value" "Inappropriate conduct" "I think you are being mean / rude" "Bad attempt at funny" "Off topic to parent" "Off topic to post" "Difficult to understand/Noise"
  - noir_lord 12y ago
    Slashdot does this. What generally happens is that instead of one argument about been downvoted/upvoted you end up with even more arguments about whether something is +5 funny or whatever. I've no idea how you solve this in the general case tbh.
    - bengali3 12y ago
      thanks i'll check it out. I wasn't thinking to show the stats to others, possibly to provide feedback to the poster that they're 'above average' on the 'mean' or 'not relevant', etc scale.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      So far, while it may not be ideal, I think HN actually hits pretty close to the sweet spot.
    - r00fus 12y ago
      Part of that though is that +1 Funny doesn't add to your slashdot karma. So people sometimes "upvote to denigrate" because you can only get +5 anyway, a silly comment can get +5 Funny without actually rewarding the commenter (mocks the comment) - you can see this when replies get +5 Insightful or +5 Informative and are very contrary to the original comment. Personally, I like the idea of having qualifiers on the downvote without one on the upvote - makes you think a little bit before downvoting... plus the vote buttons are ridiculously small on an mobile Safari - so having to click twice would prevent accidental downvotes.
  - dman 12y ago
    I havent put a lot of thought into an ideal solution to this problem. But heres the best I have so far. Change the definition of karma to capture notability which would be a monotonically increasing number. So when a person mark a comment as notable, it increases your karma score by 1. Seperately have a agree / disagree score per comment whose lifetime is limited to a particular thread. Within a thread a reader can use the agree / disagree scores of comment to selectively read both sides of the debate.
- Crito 12y ago
  Downvotes not being for disagreement is an absurd redditism. Upvotes are used for agreement, so it is only natural that downvotes are used for disagreement. PG has stated in the past that downvoting things you disagree with is proper usage on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658691 I don't know if 'dang has changed this policy, but if so I haven't heard about it.
  - Retra 12y ago
    I would think that it would be fairly obvious that trying to assert that down-votes are not for disagreement is extremely futile. It's human nature to react to things they disagree with, and if down-votes don't mean disagree... then what? People aren't allowed to disagree? The only way to disagree is to actually invest significant amounts of your time? Sounds great in theory. But then a small number of zealots can derail just about every thread with minimal effort. I image it would really degrade a community in a heartbeat. So it's probably a good thing nobody has found a way to enforce such a policy.
    - Dylan16807 12y ago
      You can downvote zealotry and flawed arguments without downvoting mundane disagreement.
- brudgers 12y ago
  There are threads where expressing a well formed, well reasoned, well supported but contrary opinion runs the risk of downvotes to greyness. The root of the problem is inevitably that the topic of the thread is a poor fit for HN at that particular point in time [and perhaps always]. A symptom of the problem is that such threads tempt so many people to express their opinion for the sake of expressing it. I get lured in sometimes too. But when I can stop myself, I just flag the thread. And if I need to feel better, maybe I go through and down vote comments I disagree with in lieu of telling people their political, economic, or ethical views are wrong. That's better than me just adding to the noise and heat and lack of civility. Downvotes are socially acceptable. So are upvotes.
  - dman 12y ago
    What about topics that are important and relevant to HN but invoke a polarised opinion on HN? My concerns can be summarized into a single question - If HN had existed historically with the rules as they exist currently, would Georg Cantor have thrived in it?
    - brudgers 12y ago
      I flag bad threads. To me if a thread is producing bad behavior then it's bad. Most of the threads that fall into the category of important and bad are posted for discussion elsewhere.
    - dang 12y ago
      > If HN had existed historically with the rules as they exist currently, would Georg Cantor have thrived in it? I doubt it. Unconventional ideas that are orders of magnitude less radical than Cantor's get reduced to convention and dismissed all the time on HN. It's dismaying. But it is what human beings do, and especially what human beings in groups do. HN can't change that by proclaiming rules. Maybe we can mitigate it a little, such as by asking people to avoid gratuitous negativity.
- feybay 12y ago
  I feel like two separate point counters for each post would work best. One for well thought out post, and one for disagreement. They wouldn't affect each others score, and only the positive point counter would determine the ranking of the score.
cw0 12y ago
I agree, I see so many comments downvoted to oblivion simply because the comment betrays a lack of rockstar ninja coding ability even without being egregiously wrong. Downvoting should be reserved for trolling, bullshit, and objectively wrong information.
- krapp 12y ago
  Also - potentially interesting but controversial threads in which the first post is inevitably blotted out into oblivion. This to me is a sure sign that the fade effect of downvoting doesn't work as intended, either to prevent people from making such comments, or to prevent others from engaging them in conversation by making it slightly difficult to read them.
- cw0 12y ago
  Ironically this comment has been downvoted a few times. Point made. EDIT: try giving a reason for downvoting. Apparently opposition to downvoting is not a popular opinion.
waterlesscloud 12y ago
I agree about the downvoting. The harm it's doing has increased in recent months, and it's common to see perfectly reasonable satements of fact (much less opinions) that someone else doesn't like be downvoted. It's discouraging to see when it's not even your comment, and really offputting when it is. It's gotten to a point that I'm not sure downvoting is a net positive for the community any more. EDIT- example, this comment was downvoted in less than 2 minutes after it was posted. Did this voting improve the conversation or the community?
- buckbova 12y ago
  What did your comment add that the OP or the others replying to the OP didn't state previously? An "I agree" or "hear, hear" should be downvoted.
  - cpncrunch 12y ago
    He/she added: - facts are sometimes downvoted - it's gotten worse I don't like being negative, but if you had actually properly read and comprehended the comment rather than downvoting it, that would have been preferable. In fact this is a perfect example of why downvoting doesn't work properly. PS, I've upvoted both your comments.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > and it's common to see perfectly reasonable satements of fact (much less opinions) that someone else doesn't like be downvoted. I don't see why "reasonable statements of fact" being downvoted to be a problem. Something can be a reasonable statement of fact without contributing substantially the discussion. That's a perfectly good reason to dislike it being presented in the context, and a perfectly good reason to downvote it. pg may have said it is acceptable to use downvotes for disagreement, but that doesn't mean that downvote implies disagreement. Being a fact doesn't, on its own, make something a productive addition to the discussion.
lackbeard 12y ago
Expressing disagreement is an appropriate use of the down vote: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171.
UUMMUU 12y ago
Agreed. I got substantially downvoted for asking (what I thought) was a valid question about a Privacy Policy update. Seems the downvote is being treated more like Reddit.
InclinedPlane 12y ago
One thing I like about stackexchange is how downvoting has a cost. I'd like to see downvoting on HN cost the person doing the voting at least 1 karma, maybe 2, maybe even 5 or 10.
- MollyR 12y ago
  yea, that's a good idea. I would back this idea. It would prevent people from hunting down someone, and downvoting all of the posts without penalty just because they didn't like them. Though I'm not sure how much of a problem that is here.
radley 12y ago
A down arrow can mean "I disagree" as well as "this is negative" but in practice the latter is applied (content starts to fade out, etc). Perhaps instead of a down arrow the icon is a circle with a slash?
sixothree 12y ago
Maybe the button icon could be replaced with a word next to the reply link? Kind of as a reminder of what it means?
brudgers 12y ago
I have a difference of opinion on the matter of downvotes. A long time ago I decided to try to treat downvotes on my own posts as editorial feedback. In the best case, it just meant I was unclear. In the worst, case I said something stupid. In between there are cases where I knowingly wrote something likely to get downvotes. I believe downvoting a comment that I disagree with is often far better for HN than expressing my passionate "well informed" opinion. Downvoting prevents my inclination toward "trolling lite" in the form of explaining how someone is obviously wrong for the sake of correcting the internet. To put it another way, downvotes are for downvoting. Downvoting and moving on is the right choice whenever it proxies the possibility of worse behavior. A downvote can be a way of mocking out a flamewar or general meanness.
- lucaspiller 12y ago
  Side note: How do I know if someone downvotes my comments? On Reddit it's easy as you can see the score, but here? Am I missing something?
  - brudgers 12y ago
    The only way to know is by noticing the comment's score changing.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > Side note: How do I know if someone downvotes my comments? On Reddit it's easy as you can see the score, but here? Am I missing something? Here, you can see the score on your comments when you are logged in (your comments have a red asterisk and the point score before your name, others comments don't have either feature.) Additionally, if the net moderation is negative (net score is 0 or less, since score starts at 1) for any comment (yours or not) the comment will be greyed (moreso the more negative the moderation is.)
pavlov 12y ago
I would like downvoting to require an explanation. It could be a single-line text box with the label "Explain why". If you're serious about downvoting, it's no trouble to type in a short explanation such as "incorrect", "not funny", "obvious troll", "unnecessarily rude". (Those seem to be some typical reasons for downvotes.) And if you're not quite sure why you're downvoting, having to explain would certainly serve as a determent.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  I don't see an existing problem that this would in any way make better.
  - pain 12y ago
    Commit logs ask questions without hurting anybody. If there was ever a psyhotechnological empathic determination of medico-lego "Do No Harm" principles, commit logs are the definition of info emo sec. Bitcoin/factum public transaction messaging (uncomplete) is also equal to power for votes of parts of speech are important news triggers.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
prawn 12y ago
pg a few years back commented: I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 I don't know if he's made another comment on this issue since then. Shouldn't flagging a post/topic be generally used for a guideline violation?
- dang 12y ago
  > Shouldn't flagging a post/topic be generally used for a guideline violation? Yes.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  As I understand it, flagging should be used for egregious violations of the guidelines, but borderline or minor violations, simple lack of substance, or (per pg's comment) perhaps even mere disagreement are suitable uses for downvotes.
whybroke 12y ago
I have noticed this too and have a humble suggestion: down-votes should require a comment from the down-voter. This would have the following advantages: - The extra effort will slow down causal unthoughtful down-votes. - If there is no justification, the down-voter can be down-voted in turn presumably by a greater degree. - Any pattern of abuse can easily be seen in user profiles.
- jraedisch 12y ago
  Another advantage would be better feedback for the downvoted. Don't knowing why I was downvoted routinely drives me nuts.
- seri 12y ago
  I like advantages (1) and (3). I have a bad feeling about (2), however. And there is one immediate disadvantage I can think of: the required comments for down-voting would dilute the average karma, which is important for some people. One solution is to treat comments that explain down-votes differently than normal comments. That would complicate the system a bit but maybe it will be worth it.
isaacremuant 12y ago
I agree with you. I don't participate enough to be able to have a downvote option but I've seen how a different viewpoint (mainly one that doesn't align with HN demographics) will often get downvoted and, even though this site seems much better than others in that regard, it will still discourage anyone from posting anything they might consider controversial. Of course, any comment about downvotes is also, understandably, frowned upon and discouraged so there doesn't seem to be much recourse. We could avoid political or ideological topics altogether but that's very hard considering any conversation can lead to them. To get back on track, I see it as an extremely hard problem to solve since downvoting due to disagreement is a very big temptation and, once you start, you might not even notice you're doing it anymore.
- cw0 12y ago
  ...and you got downvoted. It's absolutely ridiculous that a forum like HN supposedly frequented by the best and brightest has so many immature children.
  - cw0 12y ago
    I've lost almost all of my karma on this thread and not a single comment as to why I'm being downvoted (-7 points or so). The original article is right that HN has become an incredibly negative community. Downvoting is the internet equivalent of saying "fuck you." So many people want to tell me to shut up but no one will actually say one word why?
    - striking 12y ago
      From the FAQ: Resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
      - oneeyedpigeon 12y ago
        Shouldn't there be an exception to that rule? "Unless the original discussion is about downvoting, or about an aspect of HackerNews that would lead to a comment about downvoting being on-topic". Of course, there still needs to be something of substance in the comment.
freehunter 12y ago
That, and the inability to change a vote. There are many times I've hit the down arrow when I meant to hit the up arrow. After just one downvote, the comment starts to turn grey, which leads to more downvotes.
MaulingMonkey 12y ago
I've heard of communities improving when downvoting was added as an option, and deteriorating when downvoting was added as an option. I've also been along for the ride for the former, and then the community revolt when they tried to remove it in a forum upgrade (it was later re-added.) > It's an awful experience It can be, if taken the wrong way. It's important to stress that one shouldn't get too freaked out over losing some meaningless internet points over what may have very well been a misclick. Keeping this in mind, it has not been an awful experience for me when I've been downvoted. I wouldn't even say it's been a bad experience for me. > Most people use to show they disagree with a comment. I think this is only true when the reasoning or tone is poor - or at least that's the only case the negatives outweigh the positives. I've seen exceedingly few downvotes when I've disagreed and argued here on HN. As an extreme example, I've seen a thread advocating Cannibalism in a serious tone gain rating, due to it's solid reasoning and proper treatment of the pros and cons of the matter. More typical topics behave similarly - constructive, well reasoned disagreement gains more points than it looses. This on a forum unlike HN - in that, I believe, you could downvote immediately upon account creation.
skwirl 12y ago
My experience has been that my comments that are posted to disagree with highly upvoted (often top) comments have been my most upvoted comments. I feel like most people on HN disagree with a comment by upvoting a counterargument, which causes a back-and-forth flow to a thread where the strongest counterargument to each reply is the top child reply. This flow is what often makes threads here great. I'm actually surprised to see people here complaining about downvotes being used to disagree with comments. A large chunk of HN users can't even downvote. And I can't remember the last time I saw a gray comment that wasn't gray for a really good reason.
- deciplex 12y ago
  > I'm actually surprised to see people here complaining about downvotes being used to disagree with comments. It is quite common and gets really annoying after a while. Some of my comments in the past have broken the rules. Fine - downvote those. But quite a lot of them have most certainly not, and were written in all earnestness with intention of productive dialogue. And too many of those were still downvoted to a very light shade of grey within 30 minutes of being posted - without a single reply to indicate exactly what anyone's problem with such a post could possibly be, and therefore no hope of improvement (or even any real indication that improvement is needed in the first place). When I read through threads, I see that I'm not the only one this happens to. And for the record (since this always comes up), no I don't care if they usually get voted back up eventually anyway. I think it's the greying-out that's the worst. As though the rest of this community needs to be protected from the substance of your post, because a few randoms downvoted your post after they concluded you weren't capitalist enough, or were too capitalist, or think hip new framework X is rubbish, or that a blog post really was just poorly written and not worth reading, etc. It is a subtle aggression perpetrated by the forum software against every user here, and it contributes more to negativity than any single post ever could. And, it's something that the mods here take special pains to totally ignore even when you bring it up in a direct reply to them discussing meta issues on the forum, multiple times over several months.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > were written in all earnestness with intention of productive dialogue. That doesn't mean downvotes were for disagreement. Just because you intended it to contribute to productive dialogue doesn't mean that downvoters didn't think that it failed to provide a substantive contribution. Your argument seems to recognize that people can disagree with you on your message, but seems equally to fail to recognize that people can disagree with you over whether the message was, independent of agreement or disagreement with your point, a substantive contribution. > It is a subtle aggression perpetrated by the forum software against every user here, Its not an aggression at all, and, if it was, it would be perpetrated by the downvoters, not the forum software. The only way it can be seen as an aggression by the software (or, more accurately, the forum operator) is if you think you have a right to be protected from seeing (or perhaps having others see) an indication of whether other members of the community think your comment is worthwhile. But that opinion is directly opposed to the entire idea of participating in a public discussion forum.
malandrew 12y ago
Weird. My experience has been the exact opposite. Rarely do I get downvoted for comments merely because people disagree with it. It happens, but often enough for it to be a problem. IMHO, the benefits from seeing unconstructive comments downvoted has been more beneficial than the damage done from the occasional good comment that gets downvoted because someone disagrees. At the end of the day, a good comment will always get more upvotes based on its perceived quality than downvotes from people mis-using the downvote feature. I credit this to the fact that you only get downvoting privileges at 500 points, at which point, you've been around long enough to have a sense of the HN culture. At 500 points, you feel like you're receiving a great power that comes with great responsibility.
spyder 12y ago
I agree that downvoting is overused, but I don't see it in the guidelines that it should be used only for guideline violations and if that would be true than what is the comment flagging should be used for? Or are they the same? And why is there two ways to mark a comment as negative (downvote and flag) and only one as positive (upvote)?
jmilloy 12y ago
I guess part of the problem is that there is disagreement about what the down vote is for. I try to think like this: I press the up and down arrows if I think something should be farther up or down on the page. Since the comment score was removed a while back, this approach is now more intuitive. Since I read from the top down, and will stop reading when the comments become uninteresting, it should also produce the desired effect. Whether I disagree with something is orthogonal to whether it is interesting or informative. I do wish, however, that there were simply two voting options: one for up/down on the page and one for agree/disagree. Just to give us all something to do when we disagree with a comment, other than reply or downvote. It would give "disagree" downvotes their own place and let the other votes dictate a comment display order and user karma. Of course, it would also be interesting to see a user with high karma and high disagree score, for example.

dman 12y ago

I agree with this. Conflating disagreement with downvoting seems to be mixing unrelated concerns. It is currently inconvenient (in karma terms) to hold dissenting opinions.

cheald 12y ago
My experience tends to be that if you can hold a dissenting opinion respectfully, and back up your assertions, HN treats it favorably in the long run. Holding a dissenting opinion without being willing to defend it with awareness of your audience's hostility to your ideas rarely goes over well in any forum, though.
- dman 12y ago
  Try saying anything critical about Apple and see if this strategy works out in practice.
  - reitanqild 12y ago
    I've been pointing out problems with Apple and seen little punishment. Then again I am kind of thoughtful when I do and often make sure to point out that I like Apple, and recommend it to others, -I just personally find their products annoying to use for specific reasons
  - bdcravens 12y ago
    I think true criticism is treated well (for example, discussing validity of walled garden in app store). It's the trollish comments, like calling Apple users sheep or ignorant hipsters that thrown money away, that are problematic.
  - smacktoward 12y ago
    I've been very critical of Apple in this forum, and it doesn't seem to have hurt my karma too much.
    - burger_moon 12y ago
      I think the topic is also important. Was the topic about a positive apple article, or a positive android or windows topic? You are more likely to draw a crowd that relates to the title's indicated company. Having a negative view point about windows is sure to get a better response in a topic that is praising an apple product. I'm making assumptions here on anecdotes of course.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
  - cheald 12y ago
    Well, I just checked, and my last comment critical of Apple (and not even charitably so) is currently at +97 karma, so I'm not quite sure the argument holds much weight.
    - dman 12y ago
      Thanks for taking the time to look into this. I am afraid it does not address the wider concern I have of which criticquing Apple is a specific example. On topics where there is a deep skew in the opinion held by the HN readerbase, it is probabilistically likely that going against the widely held view will receive more downvotes. This has a chilling effect on expressing dissent. Of course there will be people who will be able to mitigate this with their gravitas and eloquence. But it would be better if we can come up with a scheme where we lower the burden on people holding a dissenting opinion.
      - DanBC 12y ago
        I've made many negative comments about Apple, Facebook, MS, Google, etc and did not receive downvotes for them. If HN is tribal then attacking one tribe while praising the others might be a method to farm positive karma.
    - malandrew 12y ago
      Exactly. Doing a poor job of critiquing Apple will garner downvotes. Writing a well-reasoned and supported argument critiquing Apple will get upvotes.
- xienze 12y ago
  I think you're being a bit optimistic here. Downvotes will happen regardless of how well reasoned your argument is, and they'll come in a hurry if you hold an unpopular opinion on a sensitive/political subject. It's definitely my biggest gripe with HN -- there's too much of a political echo chamber here.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > Downvotes will happen regardless of how well reasoned your argument is Some will, but its very rare that I've seen posts retain a net of negative moderation when they contribute substantially, regardless of the side of an issue they are on (though I've seen controversial-but-substantial comments quickly get heavily downvoted before recovering.) And I've seen this on every side of issues -- often to opposing posts in the same discussion -- so I don't think its an "echo-chamber" effect, but more that certain topics bringout more kneejerk negative responses from people on either side. (Its funny that, in regard to accusations of HN being an echo chamber or hivemind, I've seen various posters proclaim with confidence that it was -- and that that hivemind was, variously, liberal, leftist, libertarian, capitalist, pro-corporate, anti-corporate, and in support or opposition to various companies, and any of a number of other things. I think people are way to quick to equate some people disagreeing with or downvoting their posts to HN being a hivemind biased against them.)
  - cheald 12y ago
    My unpopular opinions frequently get early downvotes, but it seems that it'll swing back into the black given enough time/eyeballs, if I've made a good argument.
  - brudgers 12y ago
    Bad threads produce bad behavior. By definition. When I see it happening, I flag the thread. Sometimes despite wishing that there could be a positive discussion of the subject because the subject is relevant and important and intellectually interesting. I think "Maybe next time it comes up the comments won't devolve."
  - lotharbot 12y ago
    Of particular note, sometimes expressing an unpopular opinion on a sensitive subject (or a subject on which some people have very strong feelings, even if it's not sensitive to most people) can trigger a cascade of "revenge downvotes". So while the original comment might get upvoted back to positive, comments on completely unrelated topics might pick up undeserved downvotes. I once had a few week period where I noticed the majority of my comments drop by exactly 2 karma, usually around the same time of day, regardless of how many upvotes they'd received or how heavily trafficked the thread was. My best guess is that I'd upset two people (or one person with two accounts) and they kept clicking back on my profile until they got bored with it.
- haberman 12y ago
  > My experience tends to be that if you can hold a dissenting opinion respectfully, and back up your assertions, HN treats it favorably in the long run. I think "in the long run" is key here. When I make a comment that challenges some band of partisans, but strikes a factual tone, my observations is that it initially gets downvotes (presumably from the partisans who are hovering over the thread/story), but in the end gets moderated highly.
bengali3 12y ago
Interesting, what if in downvoting a comment you had to pick a reason? What are all the reasons one would downvote something? "I do not agree" "I do not believe this adds value" "Inappropriate conduct" "I think you are being mean / rude" "Bad attempt at funny" "Off topic to parent" "Off topic to post" "Difficult to understand/Noise"
- noir_lord 12y ago
  Slashdot does this. What generally happens is that instead of one argument about been downvoted/upvoted you end up with even more arguments about whether something is +5 funny or whatever. I've no idea how you solve this in the general case tbh.
  - bengali3 12y ago
    thanks i'll check it out. I wasn't thinking to show the stats to others, possibly to provide feedback to the poster that they're 'above average' on the 'mean' or 'not relevant', etc scale.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    So far, while it may not be ideal, I think HN actually hits pretty close to the sweet spot.
  - r00fus 12y ago
    Part of that though is that +1 Funny doesn't add to your slashdot karma. So people sometimes "upvote to denigrate" because you can only get +5 anyway, a silly comment can get +5 Funny without actually rewarding the commenter (mocks the comment) - you can see this when replies get +5 Insightful or +5 Informative and are very contrary to the original comment. Personally, I like the idea of having qualifiers on the downvote without one on the upvote - makes you think a little bit before downvoting... plus the vote buttons are ridiculously small on an mobile Safari - so having to click twice would prevent accidental downvotes.
- dman 12y ago
  I havent put a lot of thought into an ideal solution to this problem. But heres the best I have so far. Change the definition of karma to capture notability which would be a monotonically increasing number. So when a person mark a comment as notable, it increases your karma score by 1. Seperately have a agree / disagree score per comment whose lifetime is limited to a particular thread. Within a thread a reader can use the agree / disagree scores of comment to selectively read both sides of the debate.
Crito 12y ago
Downvotes not being for disagreement is an absurd redditism. Upvotes are used for agreement, so it is only natural that downvotes are used for disagreement. PG has stated in the past that downvoting things you disagree with is proper usage on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658691 I don't know if 'dang has changed this policy, but if so I haven't heard about it.
- Retra 12y ago
  I would think that it would be fairly obvious that trying to assert that down-votes are not for disagreement is extremely futile. It's human nature to react to things they disagree with, and if down-votes don't mean disagree... then what? People aren't allowed to disagree? The only way to disagree is to actually invest significant amounts of your time? Sounds great in theory. But then a small number of zealots can derail just about every thread with minimal effort. I image it would really degrade a community in a heartbeat. So it's probably a good thing nobody has found a way to enforce such a policy.
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    You can downvote zealotry and flawed arguments without downvoting mundane disagreement.
brudgers 12y ago
There are threads where expressing a well formed, well reasoned, well supported but contrary opinion runs the risk of downvotes to greyness. The root of the problem is inevitably that the topic of the thread is a poor fit for HN at that particular point in time [and perhaps always]. A symptom of the problem is that such threads tempt so many people to express their opinion for the sake of expressing it. I get lured in sometimes too. But when I can stop myself, I just flag the thread. And if I need to feel better, maybe I go through and down vote comments I disagree with in lieu of telling people their political, economic, or ethical views are wrong. That's better than me just adding to the noise and heat and lack of civility. Downvotes are socially acceptable. So are upvotes.
- dman 12y ago
  What about topics that are important and relevant to HN but invoke a polarised opinion on HN? My concerns can be summarized into a single question - If HN had existed historically with the rules as they exist currently, would Georg Cantor have thrived in it?
  - brudgers 12y ago
    I flag bad threads. To me if a thread is producing bad behavior then it's bad. Most of the threads that fall into the category of important and bad are posted for discussion elsewhere.
  - dang 12y ago
    > If HN had existed historically with the rules as they exist currently, would Georg Cantor have thrived in it? I doubt it. Unconventional ideas that are orders of magnitude less radical than Cantor's get reduced to convention and dismissed all the time on HN. It's dismaying. But it is what human beings do, and especially what human beings in groups do. HN can't change that by proclaiming rules. Maybe we can mitigate it a little, such as by asking people to avoid gratuitous negativity.
feybay 12y ago
I feel like two separate point counters for each post would work best. One for well thought out post, and one for disagreement. They wouldn't affect each others score, and only the positive point counter would determine the ranking of the score.

cw0 12y ago

I agree, I see so many comments downvoted to oblivion simply because the comment betrays a lack of rockstar ninja coding ability even without being egregiously wrong. Downvoting should be reserved for trolling, bullshit, and objectively wrong information.

krapp 12y ago
Also - potentially interesting but controversial threads in which the first post is inevitably blotted out into oblivion. This to me is a sure sign that the fade effect of downvoting doesn't work as intended, either to prevent people from making such comments, or to prevent others from engaging them in conversation by making it slightly difficult to read them.
cw0 12y ago
Ironically this comment has been downvoted a few times. Point made. EDIT: try giving a reason for downvoting. Apparently opposition to downvoting is not a popular opinion.

waterlesscloud 12y ago

I agree about the downvoting. The harm it's doing has increased in recent months, and it's common to see perfectly reasonable satements of fact (much less opinions) that someone else doesn't like be downvoted. It's discouraging to see when it's not even your comment, and really offputting when it is. It's gotten to a point that I'm not sure downvoting is a net positive for the community any more. EDIT- example, this comment was downvoted in less than 2 minutes after it was posted. Did this voting improve the conversation or the community?

buckbova 12y ago
What did your comment add that the OP or the others replying to the OP didn't state previously? An "I agree" or "hear, hear" should be downvoted.
- cpncrunch 12y ago
  He/she added: - facts are sometimes downvoted - it's gotten worse I don't like being negative, but if you had actually properly read and comprehended the comment rather than downvoting it, that would have been preferable. In fact this is a perfect example of why downvoting doesn't work properly. PS, I've upvoted both your comments.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> and it's common to see perfectly reasonable satements of fact (much less opinions) that someone else doesn't like be downvoted. I don't see why "reasonable statements of fact" being downvoted to be a problem. Something can be a reasonable statement of fact without contributing substantially the discussion. That's a perfectly good reason to dislike it being presented in the context, and a perfectly good reason to downvote it. pg may have said it is acceptable to use downvotes for disagreement, but that doesn't mean that downvote implies disagreement. Being a fact doesn't, on its own, make something a productive addition to the discussion.

lackbeard 12y ago

Expressing disagreement is an appropriate use of the down vote: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171.

UUMMUU 12y ago

Agreed. I got substantially downvoted for asking (what I thought) was a valid question about a Privacy Policy update. Seems the downvote is being treated more like Reddit.

InclinedPlane 12y ago

One thing I like about stackexchange is how downvoting has a cost. I'd like to see downvoting on HN cost the person doing the voting at least 1 karma, maybe 2, maybe even 5 or 10.

MollyR 12y ago
yea, that's a good idea. I would back this idea. It would prevent people from hunting down someone, and downvoting all of the posts without penalty just because they didn't like them. Though I'm not sure how much of a problem that is here.

radley 12y ago

A down arrow can mean "I disagree" as well as "this is negative" but in practice the latter is applied (content starts to fade out, etc). Perhaps instead of a down arrow the icon is a circle with a slash?

sixothree 12y ago

Maybe the button icon could be replaced with a word next to the reply link? Kind of as a reminder of what it means?

brudgers 12y ago

I have a difference of opinion on the matter of downvotes. A long time ago I decided to try to treat downvotes on my own posts as editorial feedback. In the best case, it just meant I was unclear. In the worst, case I said something stupid. In between there are cases where I knowingly wrote something likely to get downvotes. I believe downvoting a comment that I disagree with is often far better for HN than expressing my passionate "well informed" opinion. Downvoting prevents my inclination toward "trolling lite" in the form of explaining how someone is obviously wrong for the sake of correcting the internet. To put it another way, downvotes are for downvoting. Downvoting and moving on is the right choice whenever it proxies the possibility of worse behavior. A downvote can be a way of mocking out a flamewar or general meanness.

lucaspiller 12y ago
Side note: How do I know if someone downvotes my comments? On Reddit it's easy as you can see the score, but here? Am I missing something?
- brudgers 12y ago
  The only way to know is by noticing the comment's score changing.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Side note: How do I know if someone downvotes my comments? On Reddit it's easy as you can see the score, but here? Am I missing something? Here, you can see the score on your comments when you are logged in (your comments have a red asterisk and the point score before your name, others comments don't have either feature.) Additionally, if the net moderation is negative (net score is 0 or less, since score starts at 1) for any comment (yours or not) the comment will be greyed (moreso the more negative the moderation is.)

pavlov 12y ago

I would like downvoting to require an explanation. It could be a single-line text box with the label "Explain why". If you're serious about downvoting, it's no trouble to type in a short explanation such as "incorrect", "not funny", "obvious troll", "unnecessarily rude". (Those seem to be some typical reasons for downvotes.) And if you're not quite sure why you're downvoting, having to explain would certainly serve as a determent.

dragonwriter 12y ago
I don't see an existing problem that this would in any way make better.
- pain 12y ago
  Commit logs ask questions without hurting anybody. If there was ever a psyhotechnological empathic determination of medico-lego "Do No Harm" principles, commit logs are the definition of info emo sec. Bitcoin/factum public transaction messaging (uncomplete) is also equal to power for votes of parts of speech are important news triggers.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

prawn 12y ago

pg a few years back commented: I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 I don't know if he's made another comment on this issue since then. Shouldn't flagging a post/topic be generally used for a guideline violation?

dang 12y ago
> Shouldn't flagging a post/topic be generally used for a guideline violation? Yes.
dragonwriter 12y ago
As I understand it, flagging should be used for egregious violations of the guidelines, but borderline or minor violations, simple lack of substance, or (per pg's comment) perhaps even mere disagreement are suitable uses for downvotes.

whybroke 12y ago

I have noticed this too and have a humble suggestion: down-votes should require a comment from the down-voter. This would have the following advantages: - The extra effort will slow down causal unthoughtful down-votes. - If there is no justification, the down-voter can be down-voted in turn presumably by a greater degree. - Any pattern of abuse can easily be seen in user profiles.

jraedisch 12y ago
Another advantage would be better feedback for the downvoted. Don't knowing why I was downvoted routinely drives me nuts.
seri 12y ago
I like advantages (1) and (3). I have a bad feeling about (2), however. And there is one immediate disadvantage I can think of: the required comments for down-voting would dilute the average karma, which is important for some people. One solution is to treat comments that explain down-votes differently than normal comments. That would complicate the system a bit but maybe it will be worth it.

isaacremuant 12y ago

I agree with you. I don't participate enough to be able to have a downvote option but I've seen how a different viewpoint (mainly one that doesn't align with HN demographics) will often get downvoted and, even though this site seems much better than others in that regard, it will still discourage anyone from posting anything they might consider controversial. Of course, any comment about downvotes is also, understandably, frowned upon and discouraged so there doesn't seem to be much recourse. We could avoid political or ideological topics altogether but that's very hard considering any conversation can lead to them. To get back on track, I see it as an extremely hard problem to solve since downvoting due to disagreement is a very big temptation and, once you start, you might not even notice you're doing it anymore.

cw0 12y ago
...and you got downvoted. It's absolutely ridiculous that a forum like HN supposedly frequented by the best and brightest has so many immature children.
- cw0 12y ago
  I've lost almost all of my karma on this thread and not a single comment as to why I'm being downvoted (-7 points or so). The original article is right that HN has become an incredibly negative community. Downvoting is the internet equivalent of saying "fuck you." So many people want to tell me to shut up but no one will actually say one word why?
  - striking 12y ago
    From the FAQ: Resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
    - oneeyedpigeon 12y ago
      Shouldn't there be an exception to that rule? "Unless the original discussion is about downvoting, or about an aspect of HackerNews that would lead to a comment about downvoting being on-topic". Of course, there still needs to be something of substance in the comment.

freehunter 12y ago

That, and the inability to change a vote. There are many times I've hit the down arrow when I meant to hit the up arrow. After just one downvote, the comment starts to turn grey, which leads to more downvotes.

MaulingMonkey 12y ago

I've heard of communities improving when downvoting was added as an option, and deteriorating when downvoting was added as an option. I've also been along for the ride for the former, and then the community revolt when they tried to remove it in a forum upgrade (it was later re-added.) > It's an awful experience It can be, if taken the wrong way. It's important to stress that one shouldn't get too freaked out over losing some meaningless internet points over what may have very well been a misclick. Keeping this in mind, it has not been an awful experience for me when I've been downvoted. I wouldn't even say it's been a bad experience for me. > Most people use to show they disagree with a comment. I think this is only true when the reasoning or tone is poor - or at least that's the only case the negatives outweigh the positives. I've seen exceedingly few downvotes when I've disagreed and argued here on HN. As an extreme example, I've seen a thread advocating Cannibalism in a serious tone gain rating, due to it's solid reasoning and proper treatment of the pros and cons of the matter. More typical topics behave similarly - constructive, well reasoned disagreement gains more points than it looses. This on a forum unlike HN - in that, I believe, you could downvote immediately upon account creation.

skwirl 12y ago

My experience has been that my comments that are posted to disagree with highly upvoted (often top) comments have been my most upvoted comments. I feel like most people on HN disagree with a comment by upvoting a counterargument, which causes a back-and-forth flow to a thread where the strongest counterargument to each reply is the top child reply. This flow is what often makes threads here great. I'm actually surprised to see people here complaining about downvotes being used to disagree with comments. A large chunk of HN users can't even downvote. And I can't remember the last time I saw a gray comment that wasn't gray for a really good reason.

deciplex 12y ago
> I'm actually surprised to see people here complaining about downvotes being used to disagree with comments. It is quite common and gets really annoying after a while. Some of my comments in the past have broken the rules. Fine - downvote those. But quite a lot of them have most certainly not, and were written in all earnestness with intention of productive dialogue. And too many of those were still downvoted to a very light shade of grey within 30 minutes of being posted - without a single reply to indicate exactly what anyone's problem with such a post could possibly be, and therefore no hope of improvement (or even any real indication that improvement is needed in the first place). When I read through threads, I see that I'm not the only one this happens to. And for the record (since this always comes up), no I don't care if they usually get voted back up eventually anyway. I think it's the greying-out that's the worst. As though the rest of this community needs to be protected from the substance of your post, because a few randoms downvoted your post after they concluded you weren't capitalist enough, or were too capitalist, or think hip new framework X is rubbish, or that a blog post really was just poorly written and not worth reading, etc. It is a subtle aggression perpetrated by the forum software against every user here, and it contributes more to negativity than any single post ever could. And, it's something that the mods here take special pains to totally ignore even when you bring it up in a direct reply to them discussing meta issues on the forum, multiple times over several months.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > were written in all earnestness with intention of productive dialogue. That doesn't mean downvotes were for disagreement. Just because you intended it to contribute to productive dialogue doesn't mean that downvoters didn't think that it failed to provide a substantive contribution. Your argument seems to recognize that people can disagree with you on your message, but seems equally to fail to recognize that people can disagree with you over whether the message was, independent of agreement or disagreement with your point, a substantive contribution. > It is a subtle aggression perpetrated by the forum software against every user here, Its not an aggression at all, and, if it was, it would be perpetrated by the downvoters, not the forum software. The only way it can be seen as an aggression by the software (or, more accurately, the forum operator) is if you think you have a right to be protected from seeing (or perhaps having others see) an indication of whether other members of the community think your comment is worthwhile. But that opinion is directly opposed to the entire idea of participating in a public discussion forum.

malandrew 12y ago

Weird. My experience has been the exact opposite. Rarely do I get downvoted for comments merely because people disagree with it. It happens, but often enough for it to be a problem. IMHO, the benefits from seeing unconstructive comments downvoted has been more beneficial than the damage done from the occasional good comment that gets downvoted because someone disagrees. At the end of the day, a good comment will always get more upvotes based on its perceived quality than downvotes from people mis-using the downvote feature. I credit this to the fact that you only get downvoting privileges at 500 points, at which point, you've been around long enough to have a sense of the HN culture. At 500 points, you feel like you're receiving a great power that comes with great responsibility.

spyder 12y ago

I agree that downvoting is overused, but I don't see it in the guidelines that it should be used only for guideline violations and if that would be true than what is the comment flagging should be used for? Or are they the same? And why is there two ways to mark a comment as negative (downvote and flag) and only one as positive (upvote)?

jmilloy 12y ago

I guess part of the problem is that there is disagreement about what the down vote is for. I try to think like this: I press the up and down arrows if I think something should be farther up or down on the page. Since the comment score was removed a while back, this approach is now more intuitive. Since I read from the top down, and will stop reading when the comments become uninteresting, it should also produce the desired effect. Whether I disagree with something is orthogonal to whether it is interesting or informative. I do wish, however, that there were simply two voting options: one for up/down on the page and one for agree/disagree. Just to give us all something to do when we disagree with a comment, other than reply or downvote. It would give "disagree" downvotes their own place and let the other votes dictate a comment display order and user karma. Of course, it would also be interesting to see a user with high karma and high disagree score, for example.