Ask YC: Voting and Karma (Call to action)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=217704

by iamdave • 18 years ago

33 52 18 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I'm going to ask this as simply as can simply be asked:

In your opinion what is the purpose for the upvote and downvote? The general consensus is the upvote is for when we agree, but there is a dichotomy, or perhaps an even larger disagreement on what the downvote should be used for.

I think it's time to come to a community understanding of one another, and in my opinion this indiscriminate downvoting of comments without offering some sort of foundation on our disagreement or general apprehension to the topic is inherently threatening to the positive vibe of this community.

Discuss.

cperciva• 18 years ago

In your opinion what is the purpose for the upvote and downvote?

Upvote = "I'd like to see more comments like this".

Downvote = "I'd like to see fewer comments like this".

I don't think that people having different reasons for wanting more or less of a particular type of comment is a problem.

rokhayakebe3• 18 years ago

You are absolutely right, although it seems to me that to a growing number of users Downvote = "I disagree" or "Everyone is downvoting so I'll follow" or "You cannot disagree with this particular user so I'll downvote".

I think downvoting should not be. It is an unnecessary evil. A "dichotomy". Fighting for Peace using nuclear power. The best way to fight comments/posts that add no value is to Remain Silent. If you hit someone, there are very likely to hit you back, but if you ignore them they are more likely to take their rants and stories to Digg or somewhere else.

iamdave• 18 years ago

I disagree (although I upvoted your comment because it's a worthy contribution), if you're going to downvote a person at least share with us why you disagree and help us all glean some sort of understanding of your viewpoint.

No use adding flame infinitum.

jobeirne• 18 years ago

Modified:

Upvote = "I'd like to see more comments like this" || "I agree with this".

Downvote = "I'd like to see fewer comments like this".

xlnt• 18 years ago

the problem with downvotes is that the parent of this comment being downvoted is more likely to be because someone didn't know what || means rather than because someone wanted fewer comments suggesting minor, helpful improvements on the parent idea.

philh• 18 years ago

If enough people upvote purely for agreeing, it becomes possible to get karma for vapid posts that pander to the community.

I think it would be better to just factor in agreement as part of whether you'd like to see more. Maybe you agree with something, but the sentiment has been expressed so many times that it's getting tiresome.

cheponis• 18 years ago

Actually:

Upvote = "I'd like to see more comments like this" || "I agree with this".

Downvote = "I'd like to see fewer comments like this" || "I disagree with this".

technoguyrob3• 18 years ago

I talked about this more in detail:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=208748

To quote:

It is not ridiculous, since people aren't downmodding to express a difference of opinion about what the person said. They are downmodding to assert they do not want to hear any political opinion on Hacker News, because--as has been said--there are countless other venues for hackers to express and debate political opinion; Hacker News is not one of them.

Notice therefore we see something interesting regarding the HN system. In essence, this is exactly what pg had in mind. Karma is taken away for comments and not just submissions, so that users will adapt to the Hacker News atmosphere. As we have seen from this thread, politics (even "news" like the first ever black general election presidential candidate) is simply not something people are interested in seeing on HN, and if people keep discussing it, they will be downmodded into oblivion, effectively maintaining the current HN mindset (since, presumably, people with negative, or quickly decreasing karma, will not want to continue posting on HN).

The only thing that could break such a system is a vast shift in the mentality of the community (which is not a bad thing since it would still keep the community happy, although it's very unlikely to happen), or a massive influx of new people into the community (which is why pg wants to keep the number of new signups per day low).

edw519• 18 years ago

I almost never downvote.

The only time I downvote is if something is extremely inappropriate, negative, trolling, or is degrading (IMO) to the quality of this community.

I never downvote when I disagree. If I disagree, I reply with my disagreement. I wish others would too. Not much to learn from downvotes. Lots to learn from discussion and healthy debate.

I upvote often, to anything that I think adds value.

rokhayakebe3• 18 years ago

Well said edw519. Silence is louder than Downvoting.

parenthesis• 18 years ago

That's pretty much my take too.

Although I would further add that I often take a particular pleasure from upvoting a comment that I disagree with, if it is suitably thought-provoking, challenging, and constructive.

technoguyrob3• 18 years ago

I disagree with your second sentence, but I upvoted you for it.

sah• 18 years ago

I often hear people advocate a policy of only downvoting offensive or trolling comments on news.YC. I think it's a bad idea.

My goal in voting is always to improve the experience for the next reader. That means that I vote up what I think is the most interesting or important information, and vote down distractions and annoyances of all kinds: not just trolling, but also poorly thought out arguments, boring observations, rambling, point-missing, and anything else that consumes space without providing value.

You can look at that as being mean to people who posted comments that were merely not top-notch, but I think of it as being kind to the probably much larger number of people who are skimming the comments looking for something worthwhile.

whacked_new2• 18 years ago

The problem with your approach is you are judging what is valuable for the next reader. Your judgment might be good most of the time but it does not imply an all-round more efficient system. I'm sure digg and reddit were conceived in this spirit. And when you have a large number of people thinking like this, you automatically adjust the majority of stories to the majority view.

This is quite a debatable flaw in your argument. Worth a downmod? Hardly. I am pointing out the obvious to some (or many), but to others, and those who share your viewpoint, this might be a blind spot, or simply preposterous.

I think a community like this (HN, that is) is better off just getting into the habit of good discussion, such that it becomes implicit in the culture (which kind of is already). Just make sure the SNR is naturally high. That's quite a feat.

notauser• 18 years ago

I downvote for factual errors (such as 'Symbian is open source') because a high vote count implies that the comment is correct.

whacked_new2• 18 years ago

That would be a very unfortunate loss of information. A better scenario is if you reply with the correct statement, and try to make it upmodded more than its parent.

If you sink the incorrect comment that previously had a high score, those who walked away with the misinformation have a higher chance of having their misconceptions persist.

tptacek• 18 years ago

The reflection of comment scores in user karma makes this problem worse; it means we're keeping score, and creates artificial reasons to vote comments. Granted, if post submissions were all that HN tracked, I'd have a karma of 0. But I still think Reddit's system is better.

DanielBMarkham2• 18 years ago

Downvotes without an explanation have no meaning. You should be required to explain why you downvoted.

If a downvote means "I'd like to see fewer comments like this" -- then, why? What is wrong? Is it off-topic, rude, you disgaree, it used words you don't like, it ran on too long. What, what, what is the problem?!?! A downvote gives you nothing but some vague feeling that you broke some kind of social rule or norm somewhere _without actually explaining what it was you did_

Downvotes are mostly non-useful and promote "safe" comments, which have a tendency to be boring.

comatose_kid• 18 years ago

I don't think that you should be required to explain a downvote. This would result in a bunch of comments saying 'this sucks because...<reason x>'.

mark-t• 18 years ago

Actually, it would result in one person giving a reason and a bunch of people upvoting that. Whether or not that's a good thing is still up for debate. I do think people should feel compelled to give a reason, though.

xenoterracide• 18 years ago

I've been downvoted for explaining to a guy why he was being downvoted. he then told me his 'trolling' was a joke and to have a sense of humor (he was already at -4) then I started getting downvoted and he got upvoted.

ideas101• 18 years ago

i think there should be no down-vote - because i very rarely notice that someone comments that doesn't make no sense at all - also if people who get up-voted will automatically gain more value anyway...

so for example if i make a comment that doesn't make sense then nobody will up-vote me (and nobody can down-vote me either as there is no option to do that either) and i will end-up having lowest score (which is 1) compare to others. also down-vote de-motivates more than no-vote... so why de-motivate someone.

i hope i explained in simplistic way...

gscott• 18 years ago

It is very difficult to get upvoted but it is far easier to be downvoted, if that is what you mean I agree but if there was no downvote, then there would be nothing stopping a mass flood of useless posts.

dcurtis• 18 years ago

At the very basis, an upvote means "I want other people to see this" and a downvote means "I think this is a waste of other people's time."

Your voting habits don't influence what you see at all, so it really has no personal effect; you're voting things for other people.

dhimes• 18 years ago

You are exactly correct: since an upvote "floats" something to the top, you should upvote when you think other people should see it. As hackers understand, knowing what something does is important to knowing how to use it correctly.

schtog• 18 years ago

One thing i thought about was that sure if you don't downvote there could be others later upvoting it so it becomes positive but I rarely see that happen.

So if something is already -2 it doesn't need to get downvoted to -10(ok this rarely happens and of course something racist or similar might deserve it).

And sometimes it seems posts get downvoted because of the opinion and not the quality of the post.

I upvote posts that I like because of the opinion but I don't downvote posts I disagree with if they motivate their opinions well.

I only downvote if it is a slandering post with no argumentation.

daveambrose2• 18 years ago

I usually never downvote, but when there's something I blatantly disagree with, I'll downvote.

I'll upvote for two reasons:

1. More HN readers need to see this. 2. Excellent point.

aneesh• 18 years ago

downvote != disagreement

If someone says something I don't agree with, but says it reasonably and with some sort of support, I'll reply instead of downvoting.

daveambrose2• 18 years ago

Good point and therefore, upvote.

timr• 18 years ago

That's your opinion.

Many times, a comment is so inane that the only time-efficient way to express disagreement is to vote against it.

Any active forum is going to have a tiny bit of brass buried in a large pile of muck. If we spend all of our time apologizing to the muck-makers, there's very little time to find the brass.

bayareaguy• 18 years ago

I think the problem is the interface forces the projection of two dimensions (agreement and quality) on to a single dimension (score).

Personally I think the upvote/downvote should be for indicating quality but there should be a separate counter for agreement that would not affect the overall ordering. A separate agreement counter would also allow for some interesting options such as showing the comments of people who tend to strongly agree or disagree with someone.

allenbrunson• 18 years ago

I agree that there has been more capricious and unnecessary downvoting lately, and that it has a chilling effect on conversations. But pg's comments indicate he does not agree, so what can we do about it.

If the situation gets really dire, perhaps he'll notice.

walterk• 18 years ago

All these attempts at

1. distinguishing multiple metrics for comment evaluation, and

2. declaring that up/down voting should not be used for some of these metrics

are doomed to failure, so long as

1. there is only one dimension on which to express anything, and

2. the interface for voting lacks any obvious affordances/constraints on how it should be used, even if those affordances/constraints are merely rhetorical (e.g., a JavaScript popup that asks you to confirm your up/down vote only if complies with some set of criteria).

I suspect PG is unlikely to complicate the voting interface to map to multiple metrics until some threshold of community deterioration has been reached, so a lot of this debate is pretty pointless. The only way to enforce norms about how generic up/down voting should be used, that are not implied by the interface itself, is to constantly comment on uses of voting that are suspected to be illegitimate and to start threads like this one.

After seeing several such threads, I suspect that, at best, you will only be able to convince a fraction of the community to conform to whatever norms you think are best. Everyone else will simply use the up/down arrows as a catchall for any positive or negative sentiment they feel like expressing. Total conversion is pretty much impossible, partly because some people will disagree with those norms, and newcomers will be oblivious to them.

In my opinion, there are much bigger problems here than how up/down votes are used. Constant submission and upvoting of news that's utterly irrelevant to hacker-entrepreneurs is one.

msg• 18 years ago

"be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others"

As a commenter, you have the responsibility to raise the level of the discussion. As a moderator (with the down arrow), you have the responsibility to be generous with where others are taking the discussion.

Slashdot does meta-moderating, but it works because downvotes and upvotes have categories that it's possible for a relatively neutral observer to agree and disagree with. Here, there's a lot of ambiguity when you upvote or downvote.

DanielBMarkham2• 18 years ago

The only thing that makes sense to me is two sets of dropdowns, instead of the up and down arrow. The dropdowns would have various positive categories "agree", "insightful", "humorous", etc. and various negative categories, "disagree", "inane", "troll", etc.

Instead of clicking up or down, you click the positive or negative attribute you use to categorize the comment.

What with clicking the drop-down, it's a two click system instead of a one-click system, but heck, to me it makes a lot more sense.

andreyf• 18 years ago

Vote things up when they are something you want the community to see, and down when it is something you don't want it to see.

LPTS• 18 years ago

If all of your comments are getting upvoted, and none are getting downvoted, you aren't being contentious enough. Divide people. Argue your point, forcefully, and let the people you think are wrong downvote you. It tells you more about them, then you, if you are right, and if you are wrong you can learn things. Win-win.

Who cares about Karma? Vote me down, please. I got 325 Karma. Vote them down, I don't care at all. Why should you?

dfranke• 18 years ago

Upmod: "Likely to remember reading this tomorrow"

Downmod: Incoherency, trolling, ad hominems, and spam. Also anything factually inaccurate, but only if it is currently +1 or higher.

blogimus• 18 years ago

I see a practice here which I find unhelpful: "bandwagon upvoting" where it appears that people vote up the leading comments. Do we really need to vote the top comments in a post out of the park, please tell me what utility this provides?

I saw this a lot on slashdot when I used to frequent that site. Comments that were at 3 or 4 got pushed to 5, but comments at 2 or less got ignored. But on that site, there was a hard upper limit of 5 points.

As far as my voting practices: I upvote select comments I think are particularly lucid and have not been voted up "significantly"

I downvote what I think are innapropriate comments such as hateful, vulgar, insulting (see this site's guidelines) "excessively" whiny or demanding or just plain babble (rarely, usually I just ignore babble).

I do NOT downvote opinions I disagree with. I either ignore them or reply.

Overall, though, I think the lack of hard and fast rules to voting adds more than detracts. If we all vote in different ways, then that makes the site more dynamic.

brianlash• 18 years ago

> "bandwagon upvoting" where it appears that people vote up the leading comments.

Same deal as with Google Adwords and the reason advertisers are willing to pay top dollar for spots 1-4(ish). They're more visible, so they get more action.

You have to bear in mind that by design the top is that space where eyes fall first. So it stands to reason those comments at the top of the page are the ones that get the most action. Not saying "agreeing because others agree" doesn't go on... I just think it's effect is dwarfed in comparison to the effect visibility has on a comment's votes.

I don't see any way around the problem -- if it's a problem at all -- without altering the presentation of comments. I just don't think it's worth that.

snewe2• 18 years ago

How do you down vote?

tom2• 18 years ago

You need to reach a threshold of karma. Once you do, you'll see a down arrow on comments.

You should read the FAQ here: http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

snewe2• 18 years ago

That is an excellent requirement. No wonder this place is a lot better than digg.

tom2• 18 years ago

At first it bothered me that I could make a comment on something, maybe not a comment that everyone would agree with, but a comment that I believed, and yet I'd be down-voted. I'd watch my karma tick away and be like "What are these folks doing? What on earth is wrong with what I said? How does it lessen the quality of the conversation?"

Then I realized, it just doesn't matter. This isn't a contest, it's a community. All this measures is the general vibe of the comment. Higher numbers = better vibe. A fuzzy value at best.

More useful I think would be to see the total score, but also be able to mouse over the score to see how many down-votes and how many up-votes something received. But that would very likely require a big change by PG to maintain three scores, not one.

technoguyrob3• 18 years ago

Keep in mind some people might also simply click downvote without paying much attention to their action. I've seen this time and time again on Reddit and here that when someone replies "Why are people downvoting me? Could you please explain?" to their own downvoted comment, everyone wakes up and realizes the comment isn't that bad, or possibly even quite insightful.

globalrev• 18 years ago

Downvoting opinions you dont like creates a streamlined and boring community and will turn into the tyranny of the masses.

Downvote trolling and upvote opinions and posts you like. But dont downvote wellargumented posts that you disagree with.

AlfaWolph• 18 years ago

Reddit or not, here we come.

reggplant• 18 years ago

Usually when I downvote its by accident, from me meaning t upvote but miss, really annoys me.

Only legit things I would downvote would be trolls.

pierrefar• 18 years ago

I've downvoted once or twice when it was spam. I've upvoted many excellent discussions, a few of which I even disagreed with. When I disagree, I reply. Always, I learn something new, regardless if I changed my mind or not.

lst• 18 years ago

I don't like voting at all, since it favors the democratic dictatorship of opinion.

So, the positive thing about voting is: stupid or nonsense comments can be marked as such.

But the negative thing remains: sometimes the truth (read: reality) is not popular at all, and seems to be wrong for the majority of audience. And since such comments are always voted down, you end up building your opinion only on a democratic base -- but:

Democratic Opinion Dictatorship Is Evil.

bkovitz• 18 years ago

I upvote to say "this is worth reading". I downvote to say "this is not worth reading".

"Worth reading" means "worth reading and appropriate to Hacker News". No doubt what I, or anyone, considers worth reading has some correlation with agreeing, but not 100%.

Ask YC: Voting and Karma (Call to action)

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