
Ask HN: Would it be nice to know who upvoted you? - _0ffh
As HN currently works, you&#x27;ll know neither who up- nor downvoted you. I overall agree about the downvotes. But I&#x27;d personally also really like to see who upvoted, and some of the best reasons of why you don&#x27;t see your downvoters do not really also apply to upvoters.<p>So, would you be okay if I saw that you upvoted a comment of mine?<p>[Edit: Typos and formatting]
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deepaksurti
I believe the core characteristics of HN audience is to treat: \- Your Karma
\- The Upvotes \- The Downvotes etc as a means to an end and not an end in
itself.

Most of us here are for getting balanced perspectives, sharing knowledge on
diverse topics and growing smarter/wiser as a community, not just an
individual. So no, I do not see any value in finding out who upvoted/downvoted
me. Anonymous is the right choice!

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ak39
The best part about HN is that you do NOT know who upvoted or downvoted you! I
think the makers of this forum are wise also to prevent you from voting on
posts that reply to you! That's next level "Grandpa" wisdom (and I am 46 but I
still appreciate this architecturally embedded wisdom).

What I'd love however are these two features:

1) The ability to be notified that a user you are interested in "following"
has recently commented or posted.

2) The ability to see which comments/posts of yours have been upvoted or
downvoted in chronological order. (Sometimes I will sit with a static karma
number for months and then I'll see a surprising +1 but fail to decipher which
of my historical posts suddenly got upvoted. It's a good feeling but I'd want
to know which post was responsible.)

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ctrlaltdev
I'm not on social media for a reason, that kind of features is part of the
reasons I stay away from them.

So no. If someone really wants to engage with me, they can leave a comment...
that I will see or not.

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yesenadam
But HN is social media, i.e. a website that would be/do nothing without other
people on it also. (I hadn't really thought about that before seeing the
books/talks of Clay Shirky, all excellent.)

~~~
ctrlaltdev
I see your point.

Let's say that my consumption of HN is not social media-y - I don't care about
the people that post, it took me 3 days to see your answer because I was
checking for answers on another thread, and my focus on HN is content, not
people.

I do understand what you mean. IMO, HN is closer to crowd sourced information
than personal branding and personality cults that I see in 'social media'
sites.

But there I am, answering to your comment. I am dooooooomed.

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mchannon
The only downside is troll posts intended to harangue people of a certain
mindset.

Say I wrote an article that was controversial but was everything you wanted to
hear. So you upvote it. Then, the trap sprung, I name-and-shame you for going
against the grain.

Pretty much a corner case, though.

I'd like to see an experiment: Downvotes bifurcated into "I disagree but this
moves the discussion forward" and "this post has no value whatsoever", then
the uprating system, instead of giving posts with the largest net upvotes the
top billing, giving posts with the highest product of upvotes and positive
downvotes the top mention.

A healthy mix of disagreement is so much more valuable than every lurker
clicking "hear hear" on a popular but old news topic.

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rc_mob
No. I’d stop voting if it wasn’t anonymous

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yesenadam
>Would it be nice to know who upvoted you?

No. I have better things to do. Sometimes I wish I knew who donwvoted me, so I
could hunt them down. Probably not knowing is for the best. :-)

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ddingus
No, it will turn into endless meta about who voted for watching why.

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kwhitefoot
No. I would however like to see downvotes come with a justification. I don't
care who votes but it would be good to know what the reasoning for a downvote
was. Up and down are not opposites in this context,

~~~
ak39
I would agree. But think of the logistics for this feature: in order for you
to downvote, you have to provide a reason. Should we show the userId for the
comment? If so, we defeat the anonymous voting feature. If not, comments can
become fertile ground for trolling. (Of course admin can identify the
anonymous comment writer but we do not want to create a mods-heavy forum a la
Reddit).

I think a standard choice list for downvoting may not be a bad idea. The
choice list can begin with all the regular logical fallacies (ad homimen, non-
sequiter, false equivalance, appeal to authority etc). That way, I'd guess,
the community improves its ability to argue thoughtfully and logically.

I love HN. It's the one forum I will never consider a total waste of time.

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Ace17
> Would it be nice to know who upvoted you?

No. Bad idea IMHO.

> So, would you be okay if I saw that you upvoted a comment of mine?

Please note this is a entirely different question. But still: no, it wouldn't
be OK.

I fail to see how what you suggest could improve in any way the quality of the
discussions.

It seems it would be an invitation to a "us-vs-them" attitude and other ad-
hominem pseudo-reasonning.

One of the best parts of HN is that discussions are focused on ideas, and not
on the people expressing these ideas.

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zzo38computer
I think it is unnecessary. (However, I would not complain even if it was
implemented; I don't care either way.) (I don't use upvotes and downvotes
anyways, and if such a new feature is implemented I probably would ignore that
new feature. I don't use flag either, except to flag duplicates posted in
quick succession to each other or posts that are entirely empty and are
therefore not worth anything.)

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DoreenMichele
Nope. I deal with enough social crap as is. This would be another element of
social crap making my life harder.

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james_s_tayler
well you could use to make a fake account and then post only statements inline
with a particular political/ideological opinion and use that over time to
compute who supports those particular positions. When it comes to
controversial issues this might not be a good thing.

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rayvy
No. That would truly ruin HN for me personally (as seems to be the case with
just about everyone else)

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justadooda
It's amusing that people act like HN isn't social media. If anything I wish
they'd just allow you to not be able to see your score when you're logged in.

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muzani
I think the current system makes people reluctant to giving honest opinions,
but changing it wouldn't have much effect, as people are already used to
social media.

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who-knows95
i'm not here to get karma.

if you agree upvote this!

~~~
Fjolsvith
And then share it with 3 friends?

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who-knows95
give me your email, i have some spam for you

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grawprog
No...I feel like it works well as is...mostly... Even if the feature existed I
wouldn't use it.

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vkaku
No. It won't be fun.

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annefauvre
Yes agreed. would be nice to understand if downvotes are legitimate or a troll
strategy :)

