So here's a problem -- I think we all know that up/downvotes are routinely used to agree/disagree with the comments. With one notable exception, which is when the comment sits at 1, in which case it is not likely to be downvoted in disagreement.
Take parent comment for example. I disagree with it and if it had a score of 2+ I would've downvoted it, because my gut reaction was not "extremely positive". Now however I look at it and do not know if it's 1 or 2+, and so I cannot cast my disagreement vote without potentially pushing the comment into non-positive range.
(edit) Actually... what if there was separate agree/disagree indicator for each comment. As in "I was going to say something, but this comment is exactly that -> agreed". This will turn up/downvoting back to its original role of interesting/junk quantifier.
I was always under the impression that voting is not to be used for agreeing or disagreeing, but rather to reward a good contribution to the discussion (and punish a bad one). I have on numerous occasions upvoted a comment even though I disagreed with it just because I think it has been valuable to the overall discussion.
That's the idea in theory. In practice, it's clear that upvotes/downvotes are often used to guide the discussion in the direction that the voter wants it to go, which is often towards his/her innate biases.
I think this ability to vote in two different ways would be extremely interesting.
The agree/disagree voting stated above would give people insight into what others personally think about their comment and possibly push people to ask themselves, "Is this a useful, interesting comment, but I don't like it because I fundamentally disagree with it? Or is this a bad (meaning - does not contribute or against rules) comment?"
If this system worked, some of the most interesting comments could be ones that are voted up a lot, but very disagreed with.
Although looking at it from the other side, I could say it would make it harder for new users to participate/get up to speed, voting types could be confused, and it would add another step to a somewhat complicated process. (Plus people just might not like it)
edit: Fixed grammar and clarified some of my ideas
A lot of people on HN, myself included, consider votes to signal contribution to the discussion and not agreement/disagreement. Your comment is right in that they are often used as such, but I don't think it's desirable.
Yeah, I know the guidelines, but pg himself said that using voting to express (dis)agreement was OK. I don't have a link to his comment, but it was mentioned in another thread few days ago. To me his position confirms that the voting function currently sits with one butt on two chairs, and this may be the root of the fanboy-style mass-upvoting problem with comments (that, again, was pointed out by pg not few days ago).
It would be good to provide a link. I've been through the last 8 days of pg's comments which you can browse here and haven't seen anything to that effect:
Discussions will end up quite boring if people use votes to agree or disagree rather than expressing their point of view in a reply. I tend to think of votes on HN similar to the options for moderation on Slashdot: vote up for insight, vote down for off-topic or flamebait.
I have had this bookmarked for more than a year, as this issue comes up over and over and over again. Sometimes downvotes to express disagreement with the stated position in a comment is the most concise way, the way most friendly to other readers of HN, to indicate that the comment didn't add value to the community.
Of course, pg is experimenting right now to see if different software settings make upvotes, downvotes, flags, and so forth have better or worse effects on the community as a whole and on particular threads.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 "I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness." - pg, 1150 days ago
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658691 "IIRC we first had this conversation about a month after launch. Downvotes have always been used to express disagreement. Or more precisely, a negative score has: users seem not to downvote something they disagree with if it already has a sufficiently negative score." - pg, 665 days ago
Rather than keep trying to keep educating people that you don't want them to do what apparently is natural (I think digg and reddit et al have conditioned the upvote/downvote behavior upvote things based on agreement/disagreement/amusement.)
Maybe what's needed is to try an explicitly enable both these behaviors. Something like let the arrows become "popularity/reddit-mode" and add a separate "excellent" button next to "flag". Then you have two metrics without the annoying slashdot vectors. You can then either use the up/down votes or just leave them there as placebos.
I'm probably in the minority, but I actually like the concept of the slashdot-vectors as a way to give non-verbal feedback a bit more specific than "up" or "down".
The crux is of course in the choice of adjectives. I wonder what would happen if one would let the users choose free-form tags...
On the other hand, "disagree by replying" isn't always a good thing.
For instance, deliberate trolling is far better downvoted and ignored than engaged with directly. If a troll gets twelve replies going "Actually I disagree with your Hitler-was-great comment and here's a few reasons why..." then the troll has won.
Alternatively, a truly stupid opinion, even if honestly held rather than trollishly put forth, can derail a conversation. If every time the moon landing is mentioned it results in a big long conversation about whether it was faked or not (with the "yes" side argued by one random idiot) then that's not enhancing the discussion, it's just derailing it.
There are many issues on which sensible people may disagree, and many issues on which they may not. Sensible people should be able to figure out which are which, and downvote or reply accordingly.
PS. I think this comment is great, and I'm sad that I have no way of seeing whether anyone upvotes it or not.
Take parent comment for example. I disagree with it and if it had a score of 2+ I would've downvoted it, because my gut reaction was not "extremely positive". Now however I look at it and do not know if it's 1 or 2+, and so I cannot cast my disagreement vote without potentially pushing the comment into non-positive range.
(edit) Actually... what if there was separate agree/disagree indicator for each comment. As in "I was going to say something, but this comment is exactly that -> agreed". This will turn up/downvoting back to its original role of interesting/junk quantifier.