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Ask HN Meta: Can we quit it with the downmods already

9 points by run4yourlives ↗ HN
Ok, Apologies for the meta topic. I hate these types of posts, but I've noticed a trend lately and don't like the direction.

The comment downmod arrow is being used far too often in my opinion, and as a result discussion is starting to be diluted into reddit or digg like banter.

Comments like this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=649561 and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=651149 should never be downmodded on this site.

They are not spam. They are legitimate opinions that are perhaps unpopular, perhaps wrong, but are part of the discussion.

We've always had good discussion here, and it would be a shame to see it ruined by people using downvote arrows to silence alternative views.

As a suggested modification, I would like to see the downvote on comments removed and replaced with the flag link, thoughts?

20 comments

[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 57.4 ms ] thread
noodle
just as a community crafting thought, i'd like to see two types of flags, one that is for fact (for lack of a better word) and the other is for opinion.

so, the idea would be that you can use the factual up/down to keep spam or garbage posts in check and punish/reward the submitter for quality posts. and you can use the opinion one to up/down vote a comment based on how you agree with it, and it doesn't affect the submitter (and maybe helps suggest things for you). just something i've been thinking about lately.

mooism2
I've thought about that too. But --- on top of the usability issues --- if people are misusing the current up/down voting control, why would they correctly use a dual up/down voting control? What's the incentive for people not to mark comments they disagree with on a point of opinion as being factually wrong?
noodle
it won't inherently stop anyone, no, but it would give someone a decision point before they vote, instead of just clicking the down button for the comment making them grumpy. they'd have to make the choice, which is not an option now.

plus, an opinion vote would tie into other features, so it would behoove someone to use it properly.

carbon8
Of course, people confuse fact and opinion all the time, particularly when they have a bias about something. Even where there's not confusion, "fact" downvotes would certainly be abused.
noodle
the hope would be that they would be abused less often, especially if opinion were tied into features.
joel_feather
How about this radical idea: Once in a while, a moderator marks a comment which is reasonable but contains an unpopular opinion as a 'trap'. Anyone who mods it down gets a zap of -100 karma. Will make people think about their downmoding before doing it.
cellis
If posters have good opinions that they don't want downmodded, they should learn to communicate better. People shouldn't be punished for disliking your opinion.
TrevorJ
What if one person's idea of 'reasonable' isn't the same as someone elses'? They could be 'zapped' for downmodding not because the disagree, but becasue they don't believe the comment adds anything to the discussion. That's exactly why we have modding in the first place: so all of us can benefit from the collective filtering of the good comments. If it was a completely unsubjective judgment then having a single moderator would be the solution.
tptacek
Meta is fine, but this meta topic is actually in the guidelines as something we don't want to be talking about.
icey
Well, I down-voted the first comment you linked. I can tell you it's been substantially edited since I down-voted it.

It started out as a vacuous comment that did nothing for the conversation and looked suspiciously like the start of a reddit pun thread.

People get up arrows and down arrows; sometimes comments are well received and sometimes they aren't. Trying to corral people into not down-voting because someone asked them not to isn't going to work.

I think it's interesting that these types of submissions always come after the poster has been recently sent into negative territory on one of their comments.

ABrandt
You're right. My original comment was made as I was just waking up that morning, and it certainly did not facilitate the conversation well. Interestingly enough, the majority of the downmods were after I edited it.

The bottom line is yes, "sometimes comments are well received and sometimes they aren't." Life goes on.

And as for the poster's "negative territory," I truly don't think they should have been downmodded for asking a question on ethics. As I understand, HN is not a community to judge the morality of an individual.

ABrandt
I completely agree that the downmod thing has gotten a bit out of hand as of late (Disclaimer: I'm the author of the first comment listed as an example). The up and down votes are not meant to be a sign of your personal support or distaste for a comment.

The modification proposed here is questionable to me though. If a comment is flagged, does it automatically fade? What if its flagged multiple times? Is there a way to un-flag it? This whole issue could lead to a whole other discussion on the karma system, but I think we really do need to come up with a better way to treat the negative votes.

zackattack
No, I think downvote is good. It's an important part of the punish/reward element of instrumental conditioning to encourage insightful or intelligent remarks, and discourage comments that aren't well thought out or add nothing to the conversation (or even take away).
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axod
Nope, IMHO the first comment was an example of someone not reading/understanding the article, and ridiculous overreaction - that's why they were downmodded.

For me, it didn't add anything at all to the conversation and would have been more suited to digg/reddit.

The second is at +1, but IMHO the article itself should probably be flagged... However, "Societies with more men than women are violent, and start wars." isn't something you can really calmly respond to. Again, it's overreaction that belongs on digg/reddit. If there.

The downmod works well IMHO.

Another example would be in response to the last.fm / techcrunch rumor, if someone responded with "I just closed my last.fm account and will be urging all my friends to do the same". I'd downmod that also. It's overreaction, and does not add anything to the discussion.

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seekely
To me, this site is about consistently seeing well thought out and educated comments, not a place to let everybody express their viewpoint or opinion just because they have one. I never hesitate to upvote comments which are not in line with my thinking if they are insightful or well constructed or come from an authority on the subject matter or most importantly clearly have more than 2 minutes educated thought behind them. I will always downvote comments which are shallow, reactional, blatantly wrong, or of the 'my opinion matters' type. Most people know very little about everything, and I like how this site and the voting tends to value those who can bring something of value to the table over those who feel like they should be heard but only have shallow (if any) knowledge. Because of this, I will continue to downvote comments which I believe do not belong here, even if the comment presents an alternative view.
indiejade
I would like to see the downvote on comments removed and replaced with the flag link, thoughts?

Another possible solution: give posters the option to have their karma score be invisible.

I would love this as I actually don't really care what my number is in aggregate (unless I start thinking about it too much). In fact, it sometimes is annoying or detracts from a conversation when conversations get to be all about karma-attacks and number of downmods. It's also distracting to see "attacks" against particular people, rather than their ideas.

A simple light-graying out of a comment would be sufficient to know it had been down-voted. It's not always necessary to know that a comment was downmodded X number of times. Sometimes I get the sense that certain people are "ganged up" on for having an unpopular opinion.

Slashdot caught on to the perils of a number-based karma system and no longer has a number-based karma system; instead it's some rank like "Terrible, Bad, Neutral, Positive, Good, and Excellent."

That is smart. I think the number-based competition is fine for reddit, but it doesn't really add anything here.

brl
I love getting down-modded especially when I don't expect it or think I don't deserve it. It gives me instant feedback on how my written communication is being interpreted.

So I go back and try to figure out why people hate what I wrote. Sometimes it just remains a complete WTF style mystery and even that has some entertainment value.

If I express a controversial or political opinion, I expect some people to down-vote it and some people to up-vote it with little or no regard to the quality of the content. I watch my karma oscillate and learn about the attitudes of people in the community I am posting in.

It's fun. Stop whining. Embrace the down-vote.