Ask HN: What can/should be done about Downvotes-As-Disagreement? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What can/should be done about Downvotes-As-Disagreement?

8 pointsRazengan5 comments

When I first found HN, it was a breath of fresh air compared to Reddit etc. I loved that users couldn't downvote willy-nilly, and new comments had a chance of being seen even on posts with hundreds of them.

Since around a year ago, there's been an increase in grayed-out comments that didn't say anything that doesn't belong in the spirit of HN, but just stated a disagreement against the prevailing sentiment.

I thought about collecting a few examples before posting this, but those of you who know what I'm referring to must have noticed them too.

Another Reddit'ty behavior is "grudge downvoting" where all the comments of a user in a thread are reflexively downvoted after they post even one disagreeable comment.

It's very apparent in heated political discussions and platform skirmishes.

How do dang and other users who cherish HN for its differentiation feel about this?

I'm not a fan personally, and I can recall a time when that sort of thing was at least mildly discouraged by community standards, even though pg himself always maintained that it was officially allowed. But as far as I can tell, that ship has sailed some time ago, and I've just grown to accept it for what it is. I even find myself "downvoting for disagreement" more and more, even though I feel a twinge of guilt every time I do it. :-(

What if the down vote was moved in the UI so the false equivalence was not made visually? What if the down vote algorithms were different to the upvote algorithms?

Things do not always have to come in pairs. Ziploc bags and cable ties and Velcro wraps are entirely logical asymmetric concepts.

If you address downvotes-as-disagreement, wouldn't you also have to address upvotes-as-agreement?

On HN at least, upvotes don't necessarily mean "everyone's going to see this first" — vote score is not even shown for comments!

But even 3 downvotes are enough to decrease the visibility of a comment. Downvoting for disagreement abuses that fact.

I feel much as you write. Upvote as a sorting mechanism seems to work: it captures the zeitgeist. Down vote feels like it's mainly being used to decorate dissent from a norm.

But I freely admit I too use it oppositionally. I dislike articles and comments of a naive reductionist randean libertarian view and I loathe the constant harping anti Chinese responses to all things and I down vote them irrespective of well formed correctly argued positions because reasons.

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