
Ask HN: Are we downvoting comments because we disagree? - leonroy
I feel like I&#x27;m seeing an increasing number of well reasoned, well written comments being downvoted here simply because folks don&#x27;t agree.<p>Back in the mists of time when I signed up here I remember reading downvote etiquette is to bury comments which don&#x27;t add value to the discussion. You can disagree sure, but you don&#x27;t down vote based on just that.<p>Did I imagine that?<p>I fear that ever increasing downvotes are going to discourage reasoned and wide ranging discourse from both sides of the spectrum. It would be a shame if we ended up as another one sided echo chamber and we&#x27;ll certainly be the worse off for it.<p>Am I the only one seeing this?
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frosted-flakes
This has been discussed many times. Down votes have always been used for
disagreement.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658691](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658691)

~~~
rglullis
The HN from 2009 really is different from the one today.

For one, the downvote was only available for users with Karma > 250, which was
a really high number at the time. Also, I think this discussion you linked to
was PG's being descriptive and not normative: people do that, but it doesn't
mean they should.

~~~
me_me_me
There is still karma threshold for downvoting. And correct me if I am wrong,
you can't downvote replies to your comments.

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dang
To answer your question: yes, you imagined that—or more likely you read it
about some other forum and it mentally hopped to HN.

Downvoting for disagreement has always been allowed here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16574021](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16574021)

~~~
jb775
These Paul Graham references are 12 years old, hasn't HN evolved a bit since
then? Hasn't the world evolved a bit since then?

I think "downvoting for disagreement" generally works on discussion related to
non-sensitive topics, but starts to break down once discussion enters the
political realm. It turns into a numbers game. Since the dev community tends
to lean to the left, the "downvote" numbers are skewed in that direction. It
leads to non-left users getting frustrated and possibly no longer visiting the
site (including myself), creating an echo chamber and eroding the overall
quality of HN.

Why not set a max of 3 downvotes a day? Or subtract 5 karma points IF you
don't include a reply with your downvote? There's gotta be a way to improve
this.

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omarhaneef
Two things: firstly, I did not know that was the etiquette and secondly, it is
very easy to imagine something you disagree with is poorly reasoned.

When someone says something you agree with (say, we need testing) then you
automatically think of all the reasons you believe it and fill in the gaps in
reasoning. If someone says something you do not agree with (we need more
testing), you automatically summon the counter arguments to each point the
person has laid out, and you roll your virtual eyes at this person for not
thinking through "basic" things you feel you know.

In short, none of our intuitions on what constitutes reasonable or reasoned
are innocent.

~~~
happytoexplain
Well said. This irrationality cuts both ways. It's very common for people to
jump to "I suspect people are downvoting simply because they disagree", but I
think there are fewer people doing this _irrationally_ on HN than one might be
tempted to believe, especially if one's own comment is downvoted, and
especially if one is acquainted with the rest of the internet. I think _most_
people here downvote because they reasonably believe a comment is low value,
written in bad faith, or contains misinformation, even if that is informed by
bias. Bias is unavoidable and natural, but I think on HN it tends to be less
severe and less poisonous/tribal.

This is all pretty subjective, but in the end I think downvoting is broadly
useful in most communities. If I find myself being downvoted a lot in some
community, I probably don't fit in there. That's fine - there are so many
communities, and they all deserve to exist, and they can't all be for
everybody, and when they have no capacity for self-moderation, their content
inevitably becomes very low value (though potentially high in humor). The
biggest problem with downvoting is that it tends to push people toward this
oppressed, self-pitying, underdog mentality where people will start to act
superior for the simple fact of having been downvoted, and attempt to rally
others to identify with them and take their side against the "thought-policing
elites".

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kangnkodos
I've often thought of making a web site with two voting mechanisms. Here's a
million dollar idea you can have for free.

The two voting buttons on every post are:

Agree vs. Disagree

Important vs. Not important

Disagree/Important means that even though I disagree with this comment, it
makes an important point, and I recommend others should read it.

Agree/Unimportant means that even though I agree with this comment, it doesn't
add anything significant to the conversation, and you can safely skip reading
it.

Any web site with only one voting mechanism will surely have different people
with different opinions on what that one voting mechanism means.

~~~
was8309
This would be great. Also there are often duplicate arguments within posts. If
users could use an HN function to create a 'Discussion Topology' (like on
kialo?),we'd get alot of the position definitions out of the way. If you cared
just a little about the subject you would just identify your position. If you
had something _actually new_ to say, you would argue for your position, or you
could argue about which topology is best suited for the argument.

------
symplee
LOL ohhh the irony... Why is this flagged?

It's an honest question, 34 points in under an hour, 28 on-topic comments of
people interested in and discussing the topic.

~~~
dang
No doubt because it's off-topic. This is a meta topic that has been repeated
countless times, and will balloon into voluminous size if allowed to, yet
there is nothing new to say or hear about it.

You can't judge this by upvotes alone. Upvotes are an important part of the
system but only a part. Flagging is also important.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22upvotes%20alone%22&sort=byDate&type=comment)

------
falcolas
My biggest problem with downvoting on HN is that it can make comments
effectively impossible to read. This is not how to improve discourse.

Plus, we already have the flagging mechanism for auto-collapsing flagged
comments, why are there two mechanisms to make comments unreadable?

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gus_massa
Many times the grey comments bounce back to black after some time.

I usually upvote grey comments even if I disagree, unless they are offensive
or very wrong. I also try to avoid downvoting grey comments, unless they are
very offensive or extremely wrong.

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verdverm
Well reasoned is an opinion, can you provide links to examples?

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Youden
This is nearly always a problem in open communities with voting. Even if such
ettiquette is in place, enough people will ignore it or disagree on what it
means that it may as well not exist.

As a result, discussions boil down to relatively inoffensive and well-accepted
opinions as those who disagree with the hivemind's consensus are either
downvoted or are afraid of being downvoted because they know their
contribution won't be accepted.

The only online spaces I've seen where this isn't a problem are those that are
strongly moderated, for example Reddit's /r/AskHistorians, and spaces where
the community is small, tight-knit and known to each other.

In the former case, the responsibility for determining what has any value and
what doesn't is left to the moderators, who follow strict, publicly visible
rules. Anything left is required to be high-quality.

In the second, either people assume the best of each other or they're more
averse to conflict. I like to believe the former.

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happytoexplain
Even if HN does not have a problem with irrational downvoting, some observers
will always be biased toward that conclusion, since you can't see the upvotes
people may be making on comments they disagree with, but feel are worthwhile,
or feel are being over-downvoted.

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tmaly
I think this a useful question to ask and to hear comments on. I have observed
this. Just as I am reading this discussion it gets flagged. :(

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Jommi
Should we think about making a suggestion for downvotes without comments not
count?

Wonder what would be the repercussions of that.

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adingus
I don't understand why HN even needs a downvote button. We've all seen what
having one turns into.

~~~
happytoexplain
On the other hand, having zero community-driven moderation also results in a
place that's unfriendly to discussion.

~~~
adingus
I agree, but I see the upvote button as a weak form of that. Good comments &
those within the echo chamber rise to the top, but comments "outside" the echo
chamber still stand a chance to be seen and considered on their merits. Also,
the authors are not as discouraged to comment in the future which keeps a
better diversity of opinion.

Perhaps upvotes and responses should be weighed similarly. That way
garbage/spam can be ignored and fall to the bottom while discussion is still
promoted.

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generalpass
Additionally, down-voting an already grey comment which is not simply a
trolling comment (or one the user likely knows will get down-voted such as for
excessive snark), and then not leaving a comment simply makes for a terrible
community.

I have a greater issue when a well-written, even if brief, comment gets down-
voted heavily and nobody leaves a reply to explain why than when someone down-
votes for disagreeing.

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sharemywin
I would argue if you disagree with something don't be lazy and add a comment.

~~~
Pfhreak
Not everyone is interested in arguing on the internet. Choosing not to comment
is not lazy.

~~~
ozim
What I see people are down voting comments without reading and understanting
them. Which is lazy.

How I noticed that? By writing unpopular opinion in first sentence then
arguing with it in following paragraphs. When I write popular opinion in first
sentence I get up votes instead of down votes.

In the end karma on hn does not have any meaning for me anymore.

~~~
Pfhreak
That's what you are interpreting, but it could equally be that your arguments
were poor.

~~~
ozim
Now you are part of the problem. You did not take any time to read any of my
comments which are available in my profile. But you state something. Why? That
is just lazy. What would be better? If you don't write that comment at all.

~~~
Pfhreak
I did, actually. Comments like
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22870325](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22870325)
are downvoted because they are difficult to parse, they direct insults at the
reader, _and_ they felt that defending Amazon in this case was not a good
position.

You've done the same here -- leaning on insults (lazy) and assumptions.

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Pfhreak
Both sides of what spectrum? What kind of echo chamber? It sounds like you
have an opinion about which group is being excluded.

Is it always valuable to hear "both sides"? I'd argue that's a bad idea in
practice. For example, if an anti-vaxxer came in and started commenting, I
don't feel we owe them equal time or comment space. I'm OK with down voting
and moving on.

~~~
rglullis
Ironic that your comment is the very first that got negative on this thread.

But just so you know: your comment is being downvoted (at least by me) not
only because you created a strawman and made an excellent display of an
authoritarian/totalitarian mind, it is because your comment does not improve
the quality of the conversation.

~~~
Pfhreak
Really? I mean I suppose that's one interpretation. I'm more just saying that
some things are well understood, commonly agreed upon, fundamental, or at the
very least "settled for the time being". There must be things you'd say don't
warrant giving both sides equal space.

~~~
rglullis
Your strawman is on the fact that OP is not arguing for "always hearing both
sides", and this is what you argued against.

The point is that there are some comments that are being downvoted simply
because they are the downvoter is not in agreement.

And your totalitarian display is in the part where you indicate that anything
that is not "commonly agreed upon" should be supressed instead of discussed or
search for mutual understanding, i.e, "not deserving of space".

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generalpass
First rule of HN: don't make posts about HN.

