
Facebook rolls out trial of 'dislike' button for downvoting comments - theuncommon
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/01/facebook-rolls-out-trial-of-dislike-button-for-downvoting-comments
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sidkhanooja
Disheartening to see that Facebook is unabashedly aping the cornerstones of
various sites (reddit) and apps (Snap).

That said, a downvote, or a "dislike" button, is almost always a double-edged
sword - although it can be used to tune out hateful comments, it can also turn
potentially meaningful comment sections into echo chambers extremely fast.

I do _not_ see this turning out well.

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loceng
I always thought the only way downvotes buttons should be implemented is that
they're non-functional, in that they do nothing other than let a user take an
action; you could perhaps then influence what that specific user sees in the
future, to help get an idea of their tastes, or instead not actually affecting
where a comment or post shows up in an order.

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contourtrails
What is the purpose? What will downvoting enable aside from downvoting itself?

I have a sense it will only worsen the mob mentality on Facebook and make it
more like Reddit.

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na85
Sorry to break it to you but HN is exactly the same. The difference is that
the hive mind here doesn't like memes.

Groupthink still exists.

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contourtrails
Hive mind exists everywhere, the goal is to not encourage it.

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na85
Voting on comments encourages it.

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LandR
I don't use facebook, what is the purpose of like and dislike?

Is like meant to signify I agree with this comment. And dislike means I
disagree with this comment or does dislike mean I think this comment is bad,
O/T, abusive. Or does dislike mean something else.

What if you disagreed with the comment, but felt it was a good comment, well
argued, well presented and fair etc. would you like it or dislike it?

I feel "like" would make it look like you align yourself with the poster,
which you may not want but dislike seems wrong too.

Maybe overall like / dislike is an indicator of quality of comment, regardless
of your personal alignment with the content?

I don't get it.

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IIAOPSW
This is good because without a dislike button and karma score you can spew out
any old unsubstantiated bullocks and people have to "accept your opinion
maaaannn".

Say what you will about echo-chambers and stuff associated with comment
voting, but IMO reddit/hn are orders of magnitude better than fb.

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koolhead17
Will they have those dislike buttons on the Ads too which FB throws to our
timeline?

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IAmSonia168
So there's an upvoting button and like button as well. Do they go hand in
hand?

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jim-jim-jim
Surely there's enough proof out there at this point that ranked comments do
nothing to improve discussion, and that downvoting is always used as a "I
disagree" button?

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schoen
Are there any popular systems in which there are separate downvotes for "I
disagree" and "I think this is a low-quality, inappropriate, or abusive
comment"? Or separate upvotes for "I agree" and "I think this is a useful,
interesting, or high-quality comment"?

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CM30
Yeah, some sites have proper reaction systems that let you rate a post on
multiple basises. Slashdot's an obvious example, but quite a few forums have
such systems too, with the XenForo version having options for:

Like Dislike Agree Disagree Happy Funny Surprised Sad Angry Winner Friendly
Informative Creative Useful Optimistic Boring Old Bad Spelling

As well as whatever other options the site owner may have added. So there are
systems out there which differentiate between a post someone disagrees with
and one that's low quality, and they do make sure 'disagree' is not counted as
a like or dislike on the database level too.

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dragonwriter
> So there are systems out there which differentiate between a post someone
> disagrees with and one that's low quality,

...which don't actually mean anything in practice because (1) disagreement
effects perception of quality, so even honest voters in a system which
distinguished the two will still be likely to mark a post that they disagree
with as low wuality, and (2) people in practice, given the option, will mark a
comment or post in the way that produces the effect they wish to happen to it,
so if they want a post demoted because they disagree with it, and the forum
offers marks for disagree which don't demote and some other mark which does
demote, they choose the latter.

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CM30
Dunno, never seen this happen myself on most sites with reaction/rating
systems. Okay, the list of examples I can remember off the top of my head is
only two (Wario Forums, The Admin Zone), but neither seems to have issues with
people abusing the ratings system to dislike posts they merely disagree with.

Maybe it stops holding up on Reddit scale though.

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ThatHNGuy
a new Reddit was born

