

The Robustness Principle applied to HN - jgrahamc

How about this for a simple guidelines?<p>"Be conservative with your down votes; be liberal with your up votes"<p>Based on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle
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tokenadult
I like to upvote a lot. There are plenty of threads here where I post nothing,
but upvote the comments that I learn from. I especially like to upvote
comments that

a) provide useful information (especially those that link to other Web
resources, or that cite high-quality dead-tree books or articles);

b) ask follow-up questions about a parent comment to ask for sources or to
clarify what the parent comment means;

c) say thank you to someone who was especially polite or helpful (I usually
say thank you just by upvoting silently, but I also upvote other people who
say thank you in a comment);

d) remind participants of the site's guidelines or how to participate in
online discussion constructively;

and comments that

e) link to previous discussions of the same submitted link or closely
similarly issue on HN.

I figure the best way to improve the quality of discussion on HN is
persistently to upvote good-quality discussion. I also downvote "comments that
are (a) mean and/or (b) dumb," on the advice of pg's thread-opening post

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2403696>

of 162 days ago. And I visit the new submissions page

<http://news.ycombinator.com/newest>

to flag new submissions that are spam (which make up the majority of what's
visible on that page to anyone who has showdead turned on).

Upvote the good. Follow the example of the good. Share facts politely, and HN
will be a better place for all participants.

