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Ask HN: What intention are upvotes and downvotes meant to signal on HN?

8 points by tareqak ↗ HN
The guidelines and the FAQ don't have anything about it [0][1]. I remember reading comments from way back when that an upvote means something along the lines of "this comment adds constructively to the conversation". In that case, the downvote button would just be the negation, right? If that is truly the intended use, then I think this use differs substantially from the agree/like and disagree/dislike semantics that other sites use such that it merits some documentation.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

9 comments

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elefantastisch
Perhaps it is instructive to note what votes do. Voting something up incentives the person submitting / commenting to do so more often in the way they did when they earned the upvote and it also makes the content visible to more users. Voting something down does the opposite. It disincentives contributing more in the same fashion and it makes the content visible to fewer users.

So...

upvote == more of this please / more people should see this

downvote == less of this please / no one needs to see this

(And incidentally, flag == this is vastly inappropriate and not even worthy of a vote)

bitxbitxbitcoin
I wonder if HN would release stats on how often people downvote AND flag. Anecdata - I do both while it seems you only do one or the other. What about others?
howard941
I'd like to see the stats too. I rarely downvote and treat it as if it were subtracted from my karma when I do it but I'm a frequent upvoter because it makes the recipient feel good, feel appreciated, and therefore encouraged to post more of the stuff I liked.
masonic
I only use comment flags to signal that this comment warrants the attention of mods regardless of whether I disagree with whatever opinion it includes.
snazz
Anecdotally, I also use the upvote button when I'm about to comment on something but then see that someone else has said it better than I could have. Instead of two comments that state roughly the same thing, the one that was posted first rises farther to the top.
tlb
Upvote and downvote are defined by their operational semantics. There are no formally defined denotational semantics as you're asking for.

The operational semantics are simply that comments are sorted by (upvotes - downvotes), and grayed out if that goes negative. (It's slightly more complicated, but that's the dominant factor.)

Most people read comments starting at the top, and give up when the comments devolve into crap. So the important thing is to upvote comments worth reading.

I upvote things I disagree with if they make an interesting and coherent argument. Perhaps most people would say the same, although people have widely varying inclinations to find things they disagree with interesting.

[dead] nelja
Is it possible to turn this system upside down, because really embarrassing smelly SJW shit seems to float on top?

It is annoying to look at the page source to find the voice of reason in the greyed-out areas.

oldmancoyote
Thinking back about the down votes I have received, they seemed more about disagreeing than wether the comment contributed.

When I am down voted, I am strongly inclined not to contribute anything (of any sort) again. It takes a while before I recover my intention to contribute, however there is a cumulative effect that will eventually cause me to permanently disengage from HN.

[dead] nelja
Is it possible to turn this system upside down, because really embarrassing smelly SJW shit seems to float on top? It is annoying to look at the page source to find the voice of reason in the greyed-out areas.