
Hacker News, now with downvotes - swombat
http://jacquesmattheij.com/HackerNews,+now+with+downvotes
======
RiderOfGiraffes
Quoting:

    
    
      > The downside of this being an obscure feature is that
      > knowledge of it could be abused by the less scrupulous
      > to push undesired articles off the homepage using a
      > series of flags.
      >
      > Another way to abuse this is by downvoting everything
      > except for the articles that you upvote
    

PG has stated elsewhere that he has an "indiscriminant flagger" detector, and
that when it gets triggered, subsequent flags from that person don't get
counted.

~~~
DanielStraight
This is somewhat frustrating to me. I understand why it's there, but I hate
having to be in fear of being tossed out when I'm genuinely trying to improve
the site. I really think people who trip a detector should be notified of it
so they can understand why. Failing to notify seems like a DRM-type move:
basing a decision on preventing abuse rather than empowering honest users.

~~~
joe_bleau
I tend to aggressively flag stories from new accounts, especially if they're
obviously spam or political. Did not realize that I was setting myself up to
be ignored. I guess the safe move is to no longer flag stories.

~~~
bruceboughton
Surely it makes no difference: if you flag too much and you're ignored, you
have no effect; if you don't flag, you have no effect.

Why not go on flagging? You might be having an effect.

~~~
joe_bleau
Because I feel like a chump, not knowing if my flag effort counts or is being
secretly ignored. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it just doesn't feel
like it's in the spirit (or what I perceive as the spirit) of the site to
trick me like that.

I'm not sure if I'd want to know my flags are being ignored. I know I was
pretty disappointed to lose my downvote ability a few weeks ago (I was one of
the 200-500 karma notch babies). Knowing that I'd lost an unearned flag
ability might be even worse. On the other hand, if I knew, I wouldn't bother
with the noobstories page anymore.

~~~
dolinsky
I hear what you're saying, and as someone who has been on this site for about
two years and still treated as a sandboxed user, there are times where I
wonder "why bother flagging" when there is no feedback provided to show me my
affect on the system.

Then I take a breath, close the browser tab, get back to work and realize that
I care too much at that moment about something very low on the totem pole that
isn't going to increase my effective output for the day.

We can't have it both ways, unfortunately. The more transparent the voting and
flagging mechanisms are on the site the more likely they are to be gamed. I'm
ok with just 'doing' and not worrying how much of an effect it has on the
site.

------
gojomo
Because the word 'flag' has a strong connotation of 'calling to the attention
of others/administrators', it was always my assumption/hope that flagging
things meant some human-with-authority was likely to see it, and be able to
take conscious action using their privileges.

So, I 'flag' articles that are perfectly on-topic, but have abusive against-
the-guidelines headlines. (I may have even, at one point or another, upvoted
and flagged an article at the same time.)

I have some concern that my strategy, if misinterpreted by the algorithms,
could result in my flags being discarded as signal-free.

The rise of automated moderation is giving a different meaning to the word
'flag' -- indeed closer to 'downvote'.

------
wccrawford
I flag any article that I think doesn't belong on here. (i.e. It doesn't fit
the theme of the site.) I wonder how close I am to the 'indisciminant flagger'
line? Or if I've crossed it?

~~~
nervechannel
For a community-driven site without a clear statement of intent, 'having a
number of upvotes' == 'fits the theme of the site', surely?

Personally I think articles about how to make more money are nothing to do
with the hacker mindset, but I wouldn't even consider flagging them if other
people found them interesting enough to upvote.

~~~
robg
Can you define "hacker mindset" for me?

~~~
nervechannel
Not really :-)

No better than pointing towards a dusty old copy of the Jargon File -- or the
New Hacker's Dictionary, the book version I read when I was a teenager,
without which I probably wouldn't be here saying this.

Anyhow, the difference in mindsets between the different readers is EXACTLY
why I wouldn't go around flagging things as off-topic that other people liked.
Viva la difference.

------
jdoliner
I find this to be quite acceptable. Reddit is constantly facing the question
of what exactly a downvote is. (There was even a very funny comic on the topic
recently.) Everyone sees downvote as the opposite of upvote, which is
understandable, but this gets problematic because people don't like being
disagreed with so polarizing arguments tend to end up with net 0 upvotes. Just
by changing the name from downvote to flag it makes it enforces a different
user behavior.

------
yosho
anyone know why they raised the downvote option from 200 karma to 500?

I miss my down arrow :(

~~~
hugh3
Inflation. More users means karma is easier to get. And there's enough folks
out there with 500+ karma to ensure that any deserving comment can get
downvoted to the floor.

------
da5e
I had this delusion that if I flagged an article, someone would come read it
and kill it if it was off topic. I like knowing that it is merely a downvote.
PG's invisible hand is always working.

------
dminor
Wasn't this already known? I seem to remember a discussion months ago about
why some highly upvoted articles disappear faster off the front page than
others.

------
zbruhnke
HN does have downvotes actually. Once you hit 500 Karma you get access to
downvoting

~~~
Zak
That's only for articles. The author, jacquesm has over 45,000 karma and would
probably have mentioned here it if he had a down arrow for articles.

~~~
rorymarinich
Unless he's hiding his powers so that we don't get jealous and overthrow him.

