
Ask PG: Are people getting more liberal with their downvotes? - ghiotion
I've noticed something that seems like a trend, namely an increased use of the downvote for comments that people mildly disagree with.  I pointed it out in this thread (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=214294).  I normally try to stay away from the downvote button as much as possible because it seems somewhat passive aggressive.  If I disagree with someone, I won't vote up.  If I really disagree with someone, I'll post a rejoinder comment.  I remain utterly convinced that the downvote killed reddit (that plus the influx of the /b/tards).<p>Has the use of the downvote increased since hacker news made it to techcrunch?  How about in the last 30 days?
======
mlinsey
_"If I disagree with someone, I won't vote up. If I really disagree with
someone, I'll post a rejoinder comment."_

I haven't been here very long but I've thought that expressing disagreement
isn't the purpose of a downvote at all. Instead, it's meant to indicate that a
post detracts from the discussion and probably shouldn't have been posted to
begin with. Using downvotes to express disagreement would only result in
discussions becoming more intellectually homogeneous, which would make the
site much less valuable.

I'm not sure how the site can encourage people to use downvotes more
appropriately, but I think that there is a higher risk of having trolls
pollute the site than of downvotes deterring legitimate discussion (has anyone
felt like leaving the site or not posting a comment because you feared that
your perspective would get you down-modded? I'm not aware of such an instance
but if it has happened to someone than that is a big problem that should be
talked about).

~~~
hooande
As an example:

There was a post about the birthday of the user edw159. Some people thought
that the post wasn't hacker "newsworthy" and others thought it was ok. I
commented "I think edw159 is one of the more active members and recognizing
his birthday is ok" and I was downvoted pretty far. I think my comment was
appropriate and it added meaningfully to the conversation, but a lot of people
downvoted it to (I assume) show their disagreement.

Now I'm worried before I post any comments, partly because I'm worried I'll
lose my precious karma but mostly because it's embarrassing to have a negative
number next to one of your comments.

~~~
babul
Initially you may worry about karma (as I did too) but we have to realise it
does not exist (and that it does not matter)!

I now appreciate down votes and see it as a way for the community to 'teach
me' (not in a negative way par se but as a guiding/helping hand) in the
simplest way possible.

:)

~~~
mlinsey
That brings up an interesting idea - karma is used to rank stories and
comments, and make sure more interesting content is more visible. But the
"game" aspect of karma (trying to make the top posters list, trying to appear
a the top of threads) probably encourages some unhelpful behavior.

If users really shouldn't care about their karma, would the site be served
better by not making karma visible at all, for users or for comments? You
could keep upvotes and downvotes, and even let users know their own karma and
how their own comments are rated (so they know when their contributions are
being rewarded), but their would be no high-score table of top users, and
users would only be able to guess at a post or a comments karma based on where
it appears on the page.

This would take away the motivation some people have to contribute high-
quality comments - I'm not sure whether the net result would be positive or
negative.

Part of this discussion needs to include a serious discussion of what this
site's core goals are. If this site were a web startup that needed to get high
traffic, than a game-like system that gets posters addicted to writing
comments to try and boost their karma makes sense. If the site is more about
making sure it has the highest quality content possible for its original niche
target audience, than that would make this approach less appropriate.

------
pg
The ratio of downvotes to up doesn't seem any different than it's always been.
But because there are now more voters, the most downvoted comments get more
total downvotes.

------
DanielBMarkham
A single up-down arrow system is fracked. Are you agreeing or disagreeing? Are
you recommending or dis-recommending? Can you tell the difference? Are you
acting petty or noble? Do you like or dislike the poster? Did he/she take you
to the cleaners the last time you disagreed online?

These systems do not promote healthy, honest, respectful discussion. They
promote lock-step agreement with wherever the majority is going. Most people
vote their emotions, not their head. With that in mind, the karma system is a
system to enforce that overall you're going to say things people mostly agree
with -- not that they find interesting or new.

This leads to a "me too" board, where there are pre-decided opinions on
everything and posters struggle to pat each other on the back in new and
interesting ways.

I exaggerate, but only to a point. As you can see on other boards, this is a
real and deleterious condition. (Please insert John Stuart Mill's argument for
the utility of listening to minority opinions here)

------
omouse
I've been down-voting some comments because it seems like everyone is up-
voting any old comment. It's ridiculous for someone's "I liked this article"
type of comment to be up-voted.

I thought up-votes for something special, to be given out once in a while as a
way of saying "your comment affected me in a deep way, thank you". If you give
out up-vote willy-nilly then no one really cares about writing a thoughtful
comment.

Here's an example of bad up-voting:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=213070> What the fuck's the point of the
up-vote there? Does dangoldin really need to be up-voted 6 times to indicate
that his comment was useful? Wouldn't 1 up-vote be enough?

Anyway, I need a coffee and it's just a number.

------
rewind
I think if you give someone the option to downvote, there are always going to
be people who do whatever they want with it. Telling someone not to downvote
if they disgree with a well-presented argument is like telling someone not to
post crap in the first place (or not to upvote crap, for that matter). Most
will abide by the guidelines, but there's nothing you can do to stop the
minority from misusing abusing it. Unfortunately, the wrong minority is enough
to ruin the feature (or even the community, although I don't think that has
happened here).

------
menloparkbum
The exact OPPOSITE trend is what I've noticed and am more worried about.
Lately it seems there is an increasing number of inane posts being upvoted to
the front page. Karma-bombing seemed more prevalent a while back when it was
easier to do.

------
alaskamiller
I got downvoted for saying it's not proper etiquette to passive-aggressively
downvote. I just chalk it up as one of those stupid things you come across
every now and then and move on. There's other more important stuff to worry
about.

~~~
unalone
What do you mean by "passive-aggressively" downvoting? Do you mean downvoting
for disagreement with a subject? Because I agree: that's a poor use of
downvoting.

------
brianlash
I've had my own encounters with the downmod problem (we all have) and I won't
repeat them here in the interest of brevity. But here's a suggestion for
handling it. Can't tell if it's pie-in-the-sky, so input's encouraged...

Most of us make it a habit to abide by the news.YC "guidelines," such as not
changing the text of submitted headlines unless it's needed for clarification,
and not adding comment signatures. And it's an easy thing to police because
there's accountability. Case in point, I've only seen a signature once, and
another user had pointed to the users' misstep by the time I noticed it.

But there's no accountability for downmodding. There really can't be, else you
injure the chance for honest opinions from people afraid of the kickback. But
what if there was a single line of text you needed to include with a downmod?
Something short, like 25-40 characters, that explained your reason. The
community would recognize anonymous feedback like "Trolling" and "Unnecessary
personal attack" as reasonable motives for downmodding, and "Bad point" or
"Stupid idea" as unreasonable.

It wouldn't eliminate the problem -- I don't think anything anonymous could --
but it might create some mechanism for policing indiscriminate downmods and
encouraging fair use.

Of course where you'd display that information is another issue entirely...

~~~
cperciva
_The community would recognize anonymous feedback like "Trolling" and
"Unnecessary personal attack" as reasonable motives for downmodding, and "Bad
point" or "Stupid idea" as unreasonable._

Most of my downvotes are on comments which don't fall into any of these
categories -- they fall into the category of "not even wrong". In my view, a
comment which isn't even logically coherent has no business being here.

------
Mystalic
After reading all of the comments, it seems clear that most of the community
wants some sort of "downvote" mechanism to assure that comments and articles
lacking quality do not reach the front page and do not "clog" up the HN
community.

It also seems clear that HN wants to tweak the system so that it's fair,
doesn't allow for people who simply disagree without just reason to downvote
an article, and holds the integrity of the community.

I have to add that any system implemented has to be simple but effective (two
sets of downvotes is not simple, for example).

So my suggestions:

\- Downvotes still exist to make sure articles and comments lacking quality,
or are clearly karma-bombs designed to bring something to the front page. \-
You can't downvote until you've gotten to understand the community. That means
a minimum Karma limit, say 50, that signifies that you've contributed to HN
enough to know the general rules of the community and some of the nuances that
make HN what it is. You could also make it so you can't upvote or downvote
after say, 25 karma. The number's arbitrary, the point is that you need to
time to understand the community before you start downvoting items.

\- Karma count doesn't appear until there's -3 or +3. That eliminates initial
biases and "peer pressure" voting for an article starting out. Not ideal, but
could work.

\- Most of all, we must remember that, if a person is submitting quality, any
downvotes they get for any reason is going to be balanced out by a greater
amount of upvotes.

No system is perfect, but you need downvotes for quality control. Let those
who have more connection to the community do that work if necessary.

------
iamelgringo
We had a similar conversation about down voting a few months back, I just
can't find the thread anywhere. I do remember PG saying that he thought that
it was okay to down vote something that you disagreed with as well as down
vote non-quality comments.

------
hugh
I'd say there's more downmodding only in that there's more modding in general.
Far more 10+ point comments now than six months ago, as well as far more -10
point comments.

I only rarely see negative-karma comments that don't deserve it one way or
another.

Furthermore, __penis __.

------
jamongkad
And I say does it really matter in the grand scheme of things? So you got
downvoted in a virtual community...my gosh the mind reels.

~~~
aston
Ironic downmods are my least favorite thing in the world. _Let's downmod
jamongkad just because he claims not to care about being downvoted!_

Is that funny to people, or something? I just don't get it.

~~~
LPTS
Im a fan of the ironic downvote personally. Its hilarious if you have the
right sense of humor. It makes me almost pee myself laughing.

I don't understand why we shouldn't be hacking the downvote system. This is
supposed to be hacker news. Ironic downmods seem consistent with that
thinking, as well as consistent with the tricksters hackers are supposed to
be.

~~~
jamongkad
Agreed, I'm not really a liberal down voter (well if you add the fact that I
down voted Wallflower for being a baby a few days ago), the gist of my
original comment so to speak is how everybody goes all randy about getting
downvoted and such. But yeah this is not Reddit and Digg we must practice a
modicum of restraint when we feel we need to downvote on something. On an
interesting side note my original comment garnered 2 points!

------
kajecounterhack
I just think people feel peer pressure to downvote when someone already has
karma less than 1. Does anyone else think this is true?

~~~
astine
How can there be peer pressure? It's totally anonymous.

------
run4yourlives
Short answer: yes.

Long answer: it's just a changing user base. I won't elaborate in this comment
though, just that's an article in and of itself.

------
allenbrunson
i agree this is happening, and that it's a problem.

i think the karma threshold for downvote ability should be raised to, say, 60.
if you can stick around for that long, you're more likely to understand the
community's values.

~~~
xenoterracide
I still don't _always_ see the downvote... there is at least one other factor
involved. not sure what it though.

~~~
allenbrunson
once a comment reaches a certain age, you can't downvote it anymore. it's to
prevent karma-bombing.

------
cheponis
Well, my version of Hacker News has no "down button". Is my browser broken?

~~~
anirbas
You only have a downvote button if you've a certain amount of karma: I think
20.

------
LPTS
Do you really care that much about your karma here? Just ignore it, it's just
a number. It's not a video game.

Obviously, the most interesting, useful comments are often going to be
controversial. In cases where people downvote stuff they don't like (which is
a proxy for, does not fit my worldview), these comments will not get the most
points. This means you shouldn't care too much about points except that they
tell you where the conventional wisdom lies.

Personally I downvote something if I think it's dumb. Since there is more
stupidity here now, it seems, there are more downvotes. That's good.

~~~
ghiotion
Gun to head, yeah, I do care about karma. But I only care insofar as I respect
the community who's voting.

The problem is that the indiscriminate downvote homogenizes discussion. The
consensus opinion rises to the top. This is good when the group is good; bad
when the group degrades.

~~~
xlnt
you should care about the reasons behind votes, not the votes themselves.

~~~
DaniFong
How are you supposed to know the reasons behind the votes? Often times
something of mine will get downvoted, and I'd like to address it, but I have
no sense of what the problem is. I have to actively keep myself from deleting
things that have received a quick negative response sometimes.

I have an idea: limit the number of downvotes per user per day. If the want to
downvote something else, something will have to fall off the stack. I think
there's less of a danger if people only downvote what they disagree _most_
with, as opposed to dismissal.

(ps: wow guys. real funny.)

~~~
ardit33
Wow. Dani's comment was good, and she got downvoted just for fun. Not good
guys. Things like this turn a good and serious site into something like reddit
or digg, where there are no more intelligent conversations.

I don't like when my posts are downvoted, so I refrain downvoting people too,
unless it is necessary. If I don't agree, I'd rather just voice my opinion.

------
xlnt
i can testify that getting mass downmodding for saying something unpopular was
common about 9 months ago. it seems the same to me now.

~~~
gscott
There is a general bias of HN and if you fall out of the range of that bias
then you will for sure be downvoted. I believe that is because many of the
users are very young and are not mature enough to value different ideals. You
have to coddle them and not shake them up very much.

------
weegee
there is no downvote button for me on this site

