

Ask HN: Downvote. What are you saying to the other guy when you downvote? - rokhayakebe

I frankly have tried to wrap my head around the concept, but I just don't get it. I don't remember ever downvoting unless it was an accident. I find it quite similar to throwing stones at someone and hiding when you do it.<p>Assuming a comment is not insulting, what do you mean to say about yourself and the other guy/gal when you downvote?<p>Would you still downvote if the other person would know you did?<p>Thank you for responding.
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tokenadult
Sometimes what I'm saying is that I would prefer not to have more
metadiscussion about downvotes, but would rather discuss interesting
technology trends or science news that satisfies one's intellectual curiosity.

I take every downvote I receive seriously and try to figure out how to make my
comments better. New submissions can't be downvoted, so for those I can only
learn from which ones (mine or other people's) get the most upvotes.

It's not a big deal. It's best to come to HN without a lot of ego invested in
karma. Just try your best to post thoughtful comments and the karma (and
especially karma average, something I still have a lot to learn about) will
happen in its own time.

~~~
frossie
_New submissions can't be downvoted, so for those I can only learn from which
ones (mine or other people's) get the most upvotes._

I think I have noticed there's a huge time-sensitivity on which stories "catch
on". In other words, I suspect you could post the same link twelve hours apart
and get a completely different number of upvotes. I speculate that this is
because readership is concentrated in the PST timezone. So story lack-of-
upvoting isn't quite the same learning experience as comment-downvoting.

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frossie
I don't down-vote for disagreement. I down-vote for comments that I think are
seriously detrimental to the goal of maintaining high signal-to-noise in HN.

For example, imagine a comment that just said "LOL!". Yes, I would downvote
that, and it says "Please don't make empty comments like that. If you like it,
upvote it, and be done with it".

I also downvote for flagrant wrongness, and I mean really mean flagrant. For
example say there was a post on geolocation and somebody insisted in all
seriousness that the Earth is flat. I would downvote that for the obvious
reason.

That said, I think the general guidelines do not frown on voting for
disagreement and many people do.

I don't know for sure, but I suspect I downvote once for every 50 upvotes or
something of that order - it's pretty rare.

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wglb
The point of comments is to add something thoughtful to a discussion that
hasn't already been added. Thus, if there is a comment that is not
contributing, a downvote is feedback about that comments contribution,
relevance, or politeness.

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anigbrowl
I rarely downvote a comment, but when I do it's usually because of some
glaring fallacy or misstatement of fact.

I would be fine with votes being open to the votee or even public.

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swolchok
From guidelines:

Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it
makes boring reading.

~~~
rokhayakebe
I am not complaining. I really would like to understand.

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confuzatron
_Upvoting_ : done when you think the comment deserves more votes that it has.

 _Downvoting_ : done when you think the comment deserves fewer votes than it
has.

 _Asking HN About Downvoting, in A Tone That Suggests Such Negativity is
Incomprehensible to Someone of Your Elevated Consciousness_ : done when you
are miffed about being downvoted (although you will deny this vehemently) :)

