The argument against "downvote". A slight violation of the First Amendment

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=218226

by rokhayakebe • 18 years ago

24 56 18 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

There has been several discussions lately about the quality of stories/comments on HN and several users are growing angry at certain stories ranking high on the front page.

Several users including PG have proposed to add "downvote" for stories, thus prevents news "lynching" Michael Arrington, Twitter etc... to go far up the hill.

Assuming a story or comment meets the YC standards (grammar, vocabulary...) and is not disrespectful to anyone or any group of people, I think "downvoting" is against evolution. It is a few step backwards for a community driven news portal.

I have witnessed several times users being downmoded simply because they did not agree with another user. Although they may give a valid reason, they are being prosecuted for having their own thoughts about a particular subject. This is bad to the point where if one cares for karma, which noone should, they may slightly alter their thoughts so they won't be condemned for thinking differently.

"Thinking differently". Now this is not to say that all users must have opposing views, but it is truly acceptable to have a different opinion, and noone should suffer the loss of karma points for having an opinion. This reminds me of Galileo's story.

I suggested yesterday that "silence is louder than downvoting" and that cost me 3 Karma points. Being hit for speaking your mind is clearly a "violation of the first amendment". Now, how is this different from firing an employee who doesn't agree with a certain company policy. I am confident that if a user could see who downvotes his stories, there will be a lot less of that. If you are doing something you would not do if you knew your identity will be made public, then there is "integrity" in question here.

Downvote is a clear step backward. How can you evolve in an environment where you risk being prosecuted for speaking your mind? This concept sounds like Iraq under Saddam Hussein. If one does not agree with another, then one should simply reply and make his argument in a civilized manner. Words are your tools, and if ones need "immunitions" to get his point across then one needs to learn how to communicate. Only those who cannot defend themselves using words, would use bullets.

I truly apologize if anyone feels offend as it is not the purpose of this article. Each and everyone is free to speak his mind respectfully and elegantly without fear of retributions.

EDIT: The first amendment enforces the FREEDOM OF SPEECH, which is disencouraged by Donwvotes.

mhb2• 18 years ago

Unless the US government has taken over Hacker News, the first amendment is not relevant.

cheponis• 18 years ago

His reference to the First Amendment is clearly allegorical - is that not obvious?

thaumaturgy5• 18 years ago

It is, but that doesn't make it less wrong.

There is no logical stance for saying that a website owner must, or ethically should, permit any particular opinion.

mhb2• 18 years ago

From his edit, it is clear that it is not.

willarson• 18 years ago

First, the first amendment has absolutely no relevance here, since it is a restriction being placed on government, not on individuals. There is a chronic habit to misinterpret this as "I can say what I want, wherever I want, whenever, however", which is an interesting opinion, but one with no correlation with the legal definition. The 1st isn't intended to--and doesn't--defend the imagined right to express your views on other people's servers.

Next, your real life examples are a bit sensationalist. The difference is that Saddam was killing people for expressing opinions, whereas we want to downvote poorly expressed and undefended opinions. A more apt comparison would be the university setting, where challenging opinions will be accepted on the merits of their presenter's ability to defend them. The same applies to Galileo, who was persecuted for his theories (not, note opinions). I believe that we'd be overjoyed to have a Galileo posting here, since he would link to his mathematics and let us examine the feasibility of his theories for ourselves.

Finally, to address the meat of your argument against downvoting, I think you have misdiagnosed why people are downvoted. I rarely see people downvoted for their opinions, but frequently see people downvoted for failing to effectively defend or explain their opinions. Since we are trying to foster discussion, the actual opinion is usually less important than explaining how they have arrived at their opinion, and why their opinion is viable. Simply expressing an opinion is noise in a conversation often boils down to noise, and opinions on their own won't feed the starving mind: the meat of the argument lies in explaining opinions.

Thus, I believe that the downvote allows the community to exert a stronger preference for comments that add value. If you want to avoid being downvoted, express you opinion and then defend it.

Diogenes• 18 years ago

"Simply expressing an opinion is noise in a conversation often boils down to noise, and opinions on their own won't feed the starving mind: the meat of the argument lies in explaining opinions." - willarson

To play devil's advocate here (because I happen to agree with your comment on the whole), the argument could be made that a downvote (without attribution or explanation) is just this sort of noise.

SwellJoe2• 18 years ago

Very low amplitude noise. I'd rather folks downvote than spout nonsense just to say something in opposition.

anewaccountname• 18 years ago

Way too many words, downvoting for disagreement is (unfortunately) encouraged; pg has already given his edict: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

melvinram2• 18 years ago

Even though the 1st amendment (or any amendment for that) has no bearing on HN, I agree with the spirit of your idea. I remember a month back, someone said something that I found funny (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=193369) ... and I put a LOL on it and I lost karma points for it. Seemed nuts to me.

soundsop• 18 years ago

I think downvoting on an "lol"-type comment is appropriate. Making that sort of comment adds nothing valuable to the conversation and actually detracts from the comments by adding unnecessary clutter. Whenever you want to "lol" a comment, just upvote it.

melvinram2• 18 years ago

lol - I couldn't resist :-P

dhotson• 18 years ago

I had an idea about this, you could require a reason when downvoting.

It might make people less likely to downvote stuff unless they have a good reason. It might also help explain to the original poster why they are being downvoted.

I'm not really sure what the implications of this would be though. Perhaps it might make it harder to get rid of obvious trolls and spam.

Spyckie• 18 years ago

All I can say is, congrats, PG, for making a place on the net important enough for people to invoke the first amendment.

mynameishere• 18 years ago

This reminds me of Galileo's story.

Or possibly the Spanish Inquisition.

LPTS4• 18 years ago

Dude,

1.) Perspective. This isn't the same at all as saddam and has nothing to do with the first amendment.

2.) This casual usage of the concept of lynching bothers me. A lot. I would probably fire someone who threw it around casually like this, on the spot. Go have a conversation about it with people from the communities that actually dealt with lynching, and read a damn history book or two. Would you say Microsoft 'holocausted' a company they bought out or drove out of business? Fuck no. Don't say 'lynching' in such a casual way. It trivializes decades of horrible abuse towards an entire race of people and creates an environment where a lot of people feel subliminal racism. You might not know anyone to point out to you just how grating things like this sound to people, or perpetuates racism, so let me.

3.) Your concept of evolution is very narrow and, well, unevolved. Evolution just deals with how a system responds to it's environment. No restriction will stop evolution, it will just evolve around whatever change happens. Digg evolved to blow goats, it's still evolution.

4.) Stop identifying with your ideas so much. Who cares if people downvote your ideas. Either they are wrong, or you are. You can learn something either way. Maybe what you learn makes you think the community is wrong, or that you are wrong, or that you could just write better. It's not a really a judgement on you.

kyro3• 18 years ago

And of course, people should also refrain from saying 'I just baked a pizza' to a Jew, 'My dad is going to whip my ass' to a black person, and 'I bombed that test' to a relative of a fallen soldier.

Sure, lynch can be used offensively, but then you'd have to look at it contextually.

No dictionary returned a result for 'to Holocaust,' either.

LPTS4• 18 years ago

I think the word "lynching" cannot casually be used non offensively by a community of mostly white people.

There is no context where a community of white people casually joking about lynching isn't going to cause minorities to feel subliminal racism. It's way different then casually saying you baked a pizza to a jewish person.

kyro3• 18 years ago

If anything, not being able to express your disagreement or displeasure towards a comment should be considered a violation of the First Amendment.

Also, telling someone that their comment is idiotic by way of reply or down arrow is far from persecution. It's almost as if in your ideal world, everyone's comments would be accepted and passed on with glee, without any sort of counterbalance. If that's the case, the Earth would still be the center of the universe.

And... no one is preventing you from using the service following a down vote, it's your choice. Had your internet connection been cut off and your computer seized following a submission of a less popular or less agreed upon comment, your argument would hold some validity.

icey• 18 years ago

Wow, I'm speechless. You need to get some sense of scale, buddy.

xlnt• 18 years ago

You aren't speechless. Accuracy, please ;p

hugh• 18 years ago

Bravo, this is the best argument in favour of downvotes (or, indeed, fonwvotes) I've seen so far.

ola• 18 years ago

I don't know what to say other than that I was thoroughly disencouraged after reading this post.

thaumaturgy5• 18 years ago

I'm going to assume that English isn't your first language, and not address the language of your post.

The ability to downmod a submission meets a practical need on sites like this one. As it stands now, without the ability to downmod a submission, it's fairly easy for a small group of people to dictate what does and does not show up on the front page. Your submission, for example, is currently in the number 2 position, with just 9 votes (slow day).

The ability to downmod allows the community as a whole to say, "this is not the sort of article we want on this site."

The way downmodding is used, the particulars of how it's set up, depends on the site and the community. I don't think there's as much danger of people downmodding something simply because they don't want anybody "speaking their mind"; I think this whole thread is proof positive of that, where nobody agrees with you and yet a number of people are spending time discussing it.

Also, I figure there's a good chance that there're enough smart people involved here that somebody can figure out how to make downmodding work well.

Based on what you wrote, I would've guessed you for a troll, but you've been around on here for over a year and have around 900 karma. So maybe not.

sabat• 18 years ago

"The first amendment enforces the FREEDOM OF SPEECH, which is disencouraged by Donwvotes."

While I understand your point, the first amendment applies to Congress making laws. Not privately run forums.

edw5192• 18 years ago

"silence is louder than downvoting"

Your entire quote, a response to my earlier comment, in context, was:

"Well said edw519. Silence is louder than Downvoting."

Oddly, I was, and still am, not sure what you meant. This was one of those comments that can mean 2 very different things, depending on the interpretation of the reader.

On one hand, it sounds like agreement, with a semi-profound simile attached.

On the other hand, it sounds like mocking, perhaps with a little attitude.

Do you see how it could be interpreted either way, depending possibly on the mood of the reader?

You've just entered territory where we've all been. When we can't see your eyes and body language, hear your tonality, and have never met you, all we have is the words on the page. They have to stand on their own. So they did. And the community responded.

At one point, I resorted to using tags like <sarcasm> and </sarcasm> because I had to; no matter how "smart" my readers were, the words alone didn't have the power to stand on their own. I had to give them a little help.

Exactly what did you mean? Just tell us, openly and honestly, and let us surprise you with our open response. For a community that puts a premium on the clever smarta$$ retort, we still value sincerity above all.

So instead of worrying about the rules of the game, why not just explain what you meant and let the chips fall where they may. In a forum like this, that's pretty much the best any of us can do.

rokhayakebe• 18 years ago

"I almost never downvote....The only time I downvote is if something is extremely inappropriate, .....I never downvote when I disagree....If I disagree, I reply with my disagreement.....Not much to learn from downvotes.......".

You explained why you believe downvotes are not the best option in your book. That is what I agreed with.

I apologize for going further and adding "Silence is louder than downvoting" as it may imply you said so.

"Exactly what did you mean? Just tell us, openly and honestly, and let us surprise you with our open response. For a community that puts a premium on the clever smarta$$ retort, we still value sincerity above all."

I have always been open, and honest, and sincere. And being open and sincere and honest has cost me a few karma points and so will they again when I hit "reply". I respect each and everyone here.

"So instead of worrying about the rules of the game, why not just explain what you meant and let the chips fall where they may. In a forum like this, that's pretty much the best any of us can do."

I take it you thought I was being sarcastic. I agreed with you and I failed to explain why I did. Again I have been participating "in a forum like this" for a few days and I respect anyone here and I would not undermine anyone's comment or post.

EDIT: I apologize if some users (Thaumaturgy...)have a hard time understand my writing. Indeed English is not my first nor second language, but I am trying my best to improve my communication skills. Thank you.

edw5192• 18 years ago

I'm not sure why you got downvoted.

Then again, I never really understand other people's voting. That's just the way it goes.

Your English is fine. Keep on posting!

dous• 18 years ago

Regarding stories, I think off-topic ones should be downvoted/deleted. Off-topic being defined as "Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." Having this text or a link to the guidelines on the submit page would probably be nice. (see http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

Regarding comments, there are also some guidelines and not following those guidelines clearly deserve a downvote. I personally think that downvotes shouldn't be used to "say that you disagree". I prefer that it be used to filter out useless comments.

imgabe2• 18 years ago

I agree with your point (we shouldn't have down votes), but not your reasons for it. As others have said, the first amendment doesn't really apply here.

The real problem with down votes, imo, is that it effectively gives everyone two votes on a story. First you get your one point for submitting it or voting it up, then you can get an additional point (relatively) by voting down everything else on the new page. Now, not everyone will do this, but some people will, which negatively affects the karma of everyone who submits stories, providing a disincentive for anything that one isn't sure is going to be immediately popular. This leads to a decline in the overall quality of stories. The sad truth is, when you take someone's name and put a number next to it, there's some people that will just lose their minds trying to get that number as high as possible. (Not to mention monetary incentives for marketing firms, as has happened on Digg and probably reddit, too. Maybe that's not as much of a concern for Hacker News, since the audience has been kept relatively small)

My solution, when I see a story I don't like on the front page, is to go to the new page and vote up every story I DO like.

thaumaturgy5• 18 years ago

Your problem with downvotes has little to do with the idea of them, and more to do with the implementation.

It's not hard to implement downvoting in a way that doesn't have the problems you described.

Also, I would assume that people ordinarily do upvote the submissions they like. The only way you could be describing anything different is if you meant that you upvote everything that you don't dislike, which I think runs completely counter to the idea of upvoting.

imgabe2• 18 years ago

So, do you have an example of an implementation that doesn't have this problem or are you just assuming one exists? If there is one, it must be a well kept secret, because there hasn't yet been a social news site that's adopted it.

One I've considered is to temporarily suspend down voting after submitting a story. But this has some unintended consequences in that it unfairly penalizes the people who submit heavily, who provide a lot of value to the site.

Your assumption that people ordinarily upvote submissions they like isn't necessarily valid. I usually read the site pretty passively, and only upvote things I think are really spectacular. It doesn't mean I don't like the other things I read, just that they didn't really blow me away.

"counter to the idea of upvoting" is a pretty vague phrase. Counter to your idea maybe, my criteria for upvoting fits my idea of upvoting just fine. Not everyone thinks of a vote the same way, as another story on the front page right now points out, this is one of the problems with a site like this.

gnaritas• 18 years ago

The first amendment does not enforce "freedom of speech" as you imply it. It limits congress from passing laws that limit your freedom of speech, i.e. what you say is none of the government's business. That doesn't mean squat elsewhere, you have no rights of "free speech" in privately owned places. If I don't like what you say I can kick you out of my house, my bar, or off my website.

wumi2• 18 years ago

"I am confident that if a user could see who downvotes his stories, there will be a lot less of that. If you are doing something you would not do if you knew your identity will be made public, then there is "integrity" in question here."

This, to me, is the most interest assertion in his whole prognosis. How would people use downvote if they knew all could see who had done it?

breily• 18 years ago

It seems that downvotes would definitely decrease - I would bet that a large portion of them would not have been made in public. If nothing else it might increase the number of replies to a post - It would be slightly embarrassing to see your name as one of the downvoters if you didn't also reply to the post.

Enabling downvotes on submissions could also be interesting - maybe to downvote a submission you have to comment about it or about why you downvoted it. Revealing voting could add an additional feature to the site - if we see that someone who likes the same stuff voted something up, then we'll probably read it.

wumi2• 18 years ago

I think the general attitude here, is to provide the functionality to a) disagree and to b) bury bad content.

In those separate issues, transparency becomes an issue, particularly with the downvote. I'm definitely in favor of promoting transparency in order to disagree or bury bad content.

motoko• 18 years ago

This post and conversation is embarrassing. With sophomoric ramblings like this at the top of HN, I wouldn't introduce this community to colleagues.

rory096• 18 years ago

Honestly, this post is exactly why we need downvotes (and I'm surprised it's been upvoted so much). I agree that the threadstarter is wrong, but explaining your viewpoint and why you think he's wrong contributes far more to the discussion than unnecessary personal attacks.

iamelgringo• 18 years ago

It used to be better IMO. But, like many things online, as the crowd grows, the content tends to get diluted. Or, at very least, the topics and themes start to shift, change and move from where they were.

kajecounterhack• 18 years ago

I discourage downvotes on articles..the main reason being that digg allows downvotes on articles and look where its gotten them?

ivankirigin• 18 years ago

This is private property. You have no rights here other than those granted by the hosts. Start your own site if you have a problem with it.

technoguyrob• 18 years ago

I miss PG. The mods need to get back so they mark deads.

eru• 18 years ago

How I love US law as an argument in ethic discourses..

(Though I generally agree with rokhayakebe.)

DougBTX• 18 years ago

> I think "downvoting" is against evolution

As a side note, evolution requires killing the weak.

When people say they want HN to go back to the Start-up News days, or Reddit to go back to the Lisp days, they are saying that they don't want the site to evolve, they want it to stay the same. But they do evolve, the strongest ideas are those that reproduce in the most minds - those which are the lowest common denominator.

kashif• 18 years ago

I think the solution is really simple. Add down voting and make all kinds of points invisible - or atleast individual karma.

DanielBMarkham2• 18 years ago

EDIT: This was a very poor post, but I think there's enough in there to discuss (aside from the awful first amendment stuff and the rhetorical rambling that went on -- please, learn to structure your arguments!)

I'd like to bring up one interesting point: Karma shouldn't matter -- yet the entire site is built on karma: who has more can downmod comments, top posters are regularly identified, all sorts of fun articles come out about how karma relates to posting style, etc.

You can't have a karma system and then say "but it doesn't mean something" Surely it's not the end-all or the greatest thing ever created, but the entire reason karma works is that it has some value to the users.

So however the discussion proceeds, can we please get beyond this "but karma shouldn't matter when you post" That's like saying it's okay to lose a couple of points in tennis if you're having a good time. It's a true statement, but it does not describe how one plays tennis. (instead it describes how having fun is more important than the rules, which is true of all sorts of things) If we're going to discuss one particular rule/moderation system, then such comments are unhelpful, imo.

jamongkad• 18 years ago

Sigh I miss the days when Hacker News was YCNews and all we ever talked about was how to start a business and what programming languages we love to hate.

axod• 18 years ago

I'd say a good solution for articles, is to give people a downvote on articles when they reach a certain level of karma.

As far as comments go, I think it's a far more complex debate, but I think the current system there works quite well.

TrevorJ• 18 years ago

"against evolution"

What? Protecting a story from the social equivalent of ecological pressure would actually be the opposite of what you suggest.

"violation of the first amendment"

No it isn't. Karma isn't in the constitution. No one is deleting your story. No one is forcing you to be silent.

"How can you evolve in an environment where you risk being prosecuted for speaking your mind? This concept sounds like Iraq under Saddam Hussein."

I believe you mean "persecuted". I don't think getting downmodded counts as persecution unless you live an incredibly easy and insulated life. Talk to Tibetan monks or any number of religious or ethnic groups around the world today who have been hunted, imprisoned or killed to get some perspective. Saddam? Um, no, if this was like that you'd have been killed for your perspective. This is NOTHING like that. Period.

The argument against "downvote". A slight violation of the First Amendment

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