HN Explorer

Ask HN: Why do you upvote a submission?

10 points by alexandros ↗ HN
This isn't going to get everything right, but it's something I've been wondering for a while. Please think about it and answer as honestly as you can.

I usually upvote a submission because I...

13 comments

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rpietro
i think it's interesting enough for me to read beyond the title
tokenadult
I upvote a submitted article if I think the submission says something important (at least thought-provoking, and possibly unknown to most people here) that will help hackers do their business ventures and their personal living better.
bgar
I upvote a submission when it's interesting enough that I don't just skim it, and also to keep the submission in my saved stories.
jseliger
other (comment)

The article is interesting, intellectually stimulating, teaches me something I don't know, teaches something to others that they should know, "engaging," or unexpected in a positive way. I actually think all of the other answers are not good and contrary to the spirit the forum is trying to cultivate.

waterlesscloud
I often upvote it to 'save' it. If 'save' and 'upvote' were different functions, I'd likely upvote less often.
olefoo
My heuristic is that if I have not seen it and I wish I'd seen it earlier on HN, then I will upvote.
dotBen
For a complete picture, perhaps you should add "I don't tend to upvote submissions", which I would put myself into.
special
Each of my upvotes probably breaks down to:

10% - A digital thumbs-up to the author.

20% - I feel like I gained something from the article and I want to repay the author by promoting his work.

30% - I want other people to see it because the world would be better if more people knew about the subject of the article.

40% - Fulfilling a narcissistic craving to express my approval of something similar to a Facebook Like or Youtube Thumbs-Up.

It gets interesting when the link is, for example, a raffle. I want to upvote because of the first, second and last reasons but I want to downvote so that less people hear about it thus increasing my own chance of winning. Individualism vs collectivism encapsulated in a single mouse click.

PeterisP
A major factor is repetition - if I saw the same topic (even if a bit different article) on the first/second page yesterday, then I definitely won't upvote.
greenyoda
In rare cases, I'll upvote an article that I think is sub-par (poorly written, logically flawed, a bit off-topic, previously posted, etc.) just because I think it might provoke an interesting discussion. In many cases, the comments here make much more interesting reading than the articles.
informatimago
Sometimes I up vote a couple of submissions following one I would want to down vote, but since there is no down vote, we can only try to up vote relatively all the others.
writtles
I want to see community discussion about the submission.