Can I heart this?
This post is spot on.
This post is spot on.
It's a journey, I think, that developers and users are taking right now. We're both searching for the right language to express ourselves, a language that we can use to our advantage. Are we converging on a common language between startup owners and users? No I don't think we are - but perhaps we should be.
An upvote and a like and a favorite (heart?) all serve different needs across networks, but they generally mean the same thing within a network.
I think for a system like this to make sense, there should be some amount of conditioning. On HN, for example, I abhor downvotes without context, especially when it's clear that the downvote is more an expression of disagreement rather than an indication that the comment detrimented the conversation.
Interestingly enough, downvoting to express disagreement is not against the hacker news guidelines[1].
A few subreddits I visit pop up a message right next to the comment when you downvote it, saying you should only do so when it does not contribute to the discussion. I think that's a pretty good solution for educating users about the intended purpose of downvoting. I also think HN's idea of only letting older users downvote is a healthy idea.