Ask HN: The Downvote

kevinconroy · on Sept 11, 2012

As a user who's been around for over a year, I've recently decided to get more active in the commenting community here on HN as I've found it to be incredibly valuable and wanted to make meaningful contributions.

I quickly learned that comments based solely on humor tend to fall flat and get downvoted.

Also, being overly negative and not offering something productive to the conversation will get you downvoted quickly.

Overall I've found the feedback of downvotes to be helpful and it's directly responsible for me raising the caliber of my comments rather than writing the funny responses that I initially think of. I tend now to just write them in the comment box, chuckle to myself, delete them, and then (try to) add something worthwhile to the conversation. Everyone wins!

mparlane · on Sept 11, 2012

I only really downvote people who set out to be dicks. And no that doesn't mean I downvote people who give constructive criticism or a differing opinion.

jasonkester · on Sept 11, 2012

Simple: I never downvote for disagreement. If somebody's wrong, people will tell him (or I will). If he's wrong repeatedly you can tell by looking at how deep he's getting in a thread.

Downvotes, in my opinion, are to indicate things that don't belong here. Usually because of tone, sometimes because it's a one-line throwaway comment that doesn't add anything or is a joke (that also doesn't add anything).

I think this is sort of the consensus way of downvoting here. Sure, there are people just arrived from other forums with different norms who still downvote for disagreement, but they're the minority and they tend to change their ways once they realize it.

The end result is that if you find yourself being downvoted, it's usually because of the way you made your point rather than the point itself. The exception being certain contentious topics that to be honest don't belong here anyway (global warming debate, apple vs. android, etc.) that are more likely to attract the newly arrived "downvote for disagreement" crowd.

dholowiski · on Sept 11, 2012

I downvote something when it's really stupid or not useful. I very rarely downvote, and I really don't care if I get downvoted.

I'm not here to earn karama, I'm here to discuss hacker stuff. If I have 10 karma or 100,000 I'm going to have just as much fun.

erichocean · on Sept 11, 2012

I've adopted the policy for my own comments to delete (immediately) any comment that gets a downvote. I wonder how many other people do that.

I do find it discouraging how quick people are to downvote things they don't personally agree with, rather than simply downvoting noise, spam, or low-quality comments. :(

(I cannot downvote people myself.)

masterzora · on Sept 11, 2012

I've adopted the policy for my own comments to delete (immediately) any comment that gets a downvote. I wonder how many other people do that.

Despite believing downvotes exist as a means of labeling content as not belonging here I hate when people delete their comments in response to any number of downvotes. Generally speaking, once you've added your comment it's become a part of the history of the discussion and I don't like said history being removed. Further, while I could see a certain nobility in people removing a comment because they see the community says it doesn't belong, most people doing so just don't want to harm their Imaginary Internet Point total and I have a strong distaste for people who put too much stock into that number.

jcr · on Sept 11, 2012

I'm fairly lenient.

I can't read minds, so if someone is technically wrong (or wrong in my opinion), I will never down-vote them. My reason is simple; they might be entirely sincere and believe they're contributing even though they're unknowingly wrong and unfortunately spreading misinformation. If I have better information, I post it, politely, and with references if at all possible. If it's a matter of differing opinions (not facts), then it's best to just quietly let it slide. I didn't come here for an argument, or lessons in getting hit over the head (sorry for the Monte Python reference).

Additionally, I don't need to agree with someone to appreciate the time they took to share and post their views. Even if I never agree with them, I benefit from knowing how the other side(s) sees things.

If someone is being rude or intentionally insulting, that's good for at least a down-vote, and possibly a flag if it's egregious.

Both flagging too much, and down-voting too much does have effects on your account. The precise mechanics including the value of "too much" have never been made public. I can't prove this in code that's actually running on HN (no public), but there's an ancient post by pg that mentions it. I could probably dig it up from my notes if anyone needs further confirmation... But, who's to say pg hasn't changed things in the years between that old post and now?

It makes sense that there's a price to pay for abusive flagging and down-voting. If you spend a lot of time on the 'new' page (/newest queue) and flag the spam as it happens, you could very well trip the abusive flagging threshold. On the other hand, if you do trip the threshold, and pg/mods see that you're actually trying to help out with the spam, they'll be thankful rather than upset.

Some down-votes are entirely unintentional. The voting UI/UX has issues in mobile environments where small screens and large fingers result in miscast votes. It wasn't so long ago that I saw Joey Flores (YC funded - earbits.com) apologize to pg for accidentally down-voting him, so it indeed happens to the very best of HN users.

As you might expect, the result of miscast votes is some voting patterns you see are actually somewhat random. Adding to the randomness are language barriers causing misinterpretations. Also adding to the randomness are quickly written and poorly communicated comments. Even when you mean well, others might not understand what you wrote.

Off the top of my head, I think it was you (001sky) who recently replied to one of my posts, and I didn't really understand your comment... Yep, it was you:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4493615

Maybe it's written perfectly and I'm the sole cause of my failure to understand? ;-) But anyhow, the point is, miscommunication happens constantly and it is one of the causes of down-votes.

My ability to type comes and goes due to my health, so I don't post or contribute very much. When I do post, I rarely get down-voted. I might get one down-vote in fifty posts or so. I do keep a very close eye on the score of my posts, and if I notice a down-vote, I'll dig in my comments to see where it occurred. Since I know about the randomness problems in voting patterns, I never take a down-vote personally. For all I know, it could have been an intended up-vote that went wrong, or someone in the habit of down-voting for mere disagreement of opinions.

Even if someone down-votes me out of mere disagreement, it's still useful feedback.

The best practice for debates on matters of contention is simple; be certain to give the other person both polite respect and the benefit of the doubt on their intentions. Some people will still react in rude and insulting ways if you politely pose a tough question, or dare to offer an opposing view to their imaginary authority.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4489017

It's just one of the risks to open forums. Some people think being rude and insulting (i.e. "mean" in pg-speak) will somehow make their point more convincing and help them "win" --whatever that means. It's very unfortunate, but it's just part of life when interacting with others.

001sky · on Sept 11, 2012

Thanks, this is a great post. I appreciate your taking the time to comment here. It was recently reading another Ask HN post, and one of your comments inspired me to post here:

<From: Ask HN: What is the consensus on Hacker News?>

A large part of the supposed "sentiments" show in comments, submissions, and voting/flagging are really just playing to the crowd. Though it might be offensive to some, the typical phrase is "karma whoring." It's really just human nature at work; if you buy or buy into some expensive widget, you promote your choice publicly to gather the esteem of your peers. Similarly, if you abandon something, you disparage it publicly to promote your choice and gather the esteem of your peers.[1]

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4489216

Having just clocked over 500 myself, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on this subject more specifically.

From my personal perspective, I've seen things a bit all over the place. I've seen some things that are on point, some that are off. Some things driven by subject matter, others broadly by the form of expression. In one or two cases, people may actually write a note with explantion. I actually apprecitate that, but there's a reason we probably don't see more of it.

The information and inference aspect -- ie, if this is feedback how to measure it and repsond -- was recently highlighted for me. I made a post with a subtle but salient observation (including quotation from the article, etc.) on the nature of science. That received half a dozen or so +1s. An couple of ours later, the net +1 was as per original post. Which led me to think: Hmm, if I did not just see this go up +6 I would not have seen it go -5 to +1. I wonder how many other posts have such latent information in them? So, this thought has been sitting in my head since, I'm not sure if it has crossed the paths of others as well. In this particular case, as in others, I think there was an element of something like this:

If A then B......If B is true it might signal weakness in C

So, people who support C for whatever reason go ballistic.

Unfortunately, the logic of these attacks is usually a mess.

Somewhat Ironically, I've seen this happen with C once being the concept of Decorum. Actually, more than once. And again, this was something I thought it useful to note and put aside, but ultimate to ask here to the larger group.

Personally, I appreciate people guiding via comments when someone is off topic or out of order. I think it shows a bit of leadership and of course the person is taking a risk of catching some flak. It sets a tone for keeping the cruft light. Which allows people to follow and hopefully develop the argument, rather than have it digress into a spiral of minutae.

By the same token, It is also useful to see orthogonal comments occasionally. A pointed, counterintuitive thought. Or counter-example. Etc. The edge-case here is the use of Irony. It arguably does not translate over the internet. Is somewhat exclusionary to people not well versed in its particulars. And it is arguably counterthetical to certain forms of logic. But it is information efficient.

This leads to another point you make, which i think is worthwile to highlight: Not every HN reader is a native english speaker. I think this is a very valid point to always keep in mind.

In the quest for information efficiency, I try too keep most posts short (cue: Irony alert). The old saying "sorry I wrote such a long letter, I didn't have time to write a shorter one" comes to mind. But condensing information can make it inpenetrable and lead to mis-understandings and ultimately more side-bar discussions, etc.

Which brings me to one last point: I looked at the comment I made that you referenced, and yes that was arguably inpenetrable. The Tl;dr - I was agreeing with you.

jcr · on Sept 11, 2012

First off, I think you'll enjoy the following:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4507024

The research being done is fascinating. It roughly explains why some people go ballistic when something is said against something they unknowingly "love" even if it's just a device, technology, or company.

Secondly, if you've studied linguistics at all or know multiple languages, you'll notice how human languages have significant variance in their dependency on context. For example, in a "high context" language like Vietnamese (one of the very highest), things are more often implied rather than expressed. In a "low context" like English (particularly American usage of English), things are more often expressed rather than implied.

In English, the use of irony, satire, and sarcasm are unexpected "high context" usage of a generally "low context" language. Without being a native speaker, the intentionally subtle but surprising switch from low context to high context results in endless amounts of confusion and miscommunication. A great example would be the recent "Porn Star Brogrammer" post. If you didn't recognize it as satire, it would be highly offensive, but even if you did recognize it as satire, many would still consider it offensive. A lot of satire is still offensive even if you do understand the context shift and recognize it for what it is.

Lastly, in English the term "argument" (outside of formal logic) implies disagreement, and often, harsh disagreement or even a fight. If you use the term "argument" in the sense of formal logic, it's best to qualify it to prevent misunderstanding.

And yes, a lot of people post on HN for the sake of having a fight, rather than to have a pleasant and mutually beneficial exchange of ideas. The smart thing to do when you see heated exchanges or harsh replies, is to just stay out of it. You have better things to do than fight with people on the Internet.

http://xkcd.com/386/

If you find someone reacting badly, ignore it. If it still bothers you, give it a few days or a few weeks to cool off, and then bring it up with them again politely, and possibly privately. At times, miscommunication just happen in spite of our best efforts and intents, but trying to fix it while people are still hot or angry usually makes matters worse.