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Comment by eitland | Hacker News Reader

@dang: could we have a commend option in addition to flag?

This comment, and a number of other comments from both sides in this thread proves that it is possible to have a good discussion on hot topics, and I live that as I feel I have now understood a lot more not only about what happened but also how it could happen.

edit: changed "can we get" to "could we have" to make it clear that this is not a feature request but an idea.

edit2: why I care is because so many of the most important discussions that come up get flagged down because they tend to be usalvagable. My hope was that this idea or something similar could help. I should also note that I don't think it would be easy to pull off as it would lead to accusations about favoritism etc.

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You have a commend button, it's the little up arrow to the left of the comment.

Nope, not the same. Ordinary upvotes hasn't had visible results since around the time dang took over from pg.

Commend, if accepted by mods, should result in a visual difference in the display of the post somehow opposite of how flags works: pin to top, really small star or something. Maybe a list of exceptionally good answers in the users the profile.

I was once "caught" for doing something correctly that all teenagers tend to fail on (technical, trivial thing) and ten years later since then I realized I had always got it right after that day when someone told me that they appreciated it.

I don't know if this is a good idea, but I wanted to mention it.

You’re getting downvoted. Welcome to hacker news, this must not be a surprise.

Thank you brave soldier. I appreciate your comment. I don’t care about HN karma, even if I do, but your comment is meaningful to me above an upvote.

I’m a “new” manager, and I am a terrible communicator (and/or I have impostor syndrome). I’ve been trying desperately to improve how I communicate personally and professionally.

This thread is maybe a perverse exercise in that, so your comment is great feedback. Thanks. Hang in there.

> Welcome to hacker news, this must not be a surprise.

I've been here for over ten years in some form or another so it is no surprise by now :-)

In fact while I really like HN I sometimes have to laugh at the voting patterns here.

E.g. Last week I think I got a bunch of downvotes for describing my first hand experience with something that everyone was suddenly an expert on :-)

> I’m a “new” manager, and I am a terrible communicator. I’ve been trying desperately to improve how I communicate personally and professionally.

Not a manager, but I also struggle with this. Also I would be happy if more people communicated as well as you!

> Hang in there.

Thanks! You too!

HN is one of the highest concentrations of intelligence on the planet, and much could be learned from voting patterns of this demographic. But as far as I can tell, keeping the peace is all that matters. Social good is for other people to do, always and everywhere.

> HN is one of the highest concentrations of intelligence on the planet, and much could be learned from voting patterns of this demographic.

Probably correct for what I know. But that doesn't means that all results here are valid.

The concentration of intelligence is obvious, but that doesn't mean I don't see sloppy reading and weird logic all the time.

Intelligent people also have biases, also read too fast and doesn't catch the nuances, also become hot headed etc etc.

You are correct. It is not difficult to find at least one single fault in any human being.

It seems interesting that a community whose members overwhelmingly work in logical domains, also struggles being consistently logical on an aggregate basis.

And not just that, the abstract topic itself is...rather touchy.

Might there be something interesting to learn here?

> It seems interesting that a community whose members overwhelmingly work in logical domains, also struggles being consistently logical on an aggregate basis.

The bar to become a member is low, and while comments are scrutinized and can be flagged, votes aren't.

And let me be honest: even I vote for or against topics that I wouldn't write for or against.

I think this is often observed in elections as well were people will give a secret vote to something they agree with even if they aren't ready to face their families about it.

FTR: I think the system tries to mitigate this to some degree. I don't think all votes are created equal here.

> Might there be something interesting to learn here?

Absolutely :-)

> The bar to become a member is low

As it is on most any other site. And depending on who signs up and participates on which each site, you end up with some sort of an average intelligence level per site. HN's I suspect would be rather close to the top.

> and while comments are scrutinized and can be flagged, votes aren't.

Indeed they aren't, which is my point.

> I think this is often observed in elections as well were people will give a secret vote to something they agree with even if they aren't ready to face their families about it.

And one might expect the same to occur here, but does it, and to what degree? Is there more, less, or identical diversity of cultural/political beliefs in the general public, or on HN? Based on many years reading comments (particularly dimmed-due-to-downvotes ones, and responses to them) here, I have a feeling that there is less diversity of thought here.

Knowing such things with high levels of accuracy would require a form of omniscience, but that doesn't mean that nothing can be gleaned from user behavior on HN, or any sit for that matter.

>> Might there be something interesting to learn here?

> Absolutely :-)

What sorts of things do you think we could learn if one had access to the HN voting data?

I don't know about intelligence, but we certainly have big egos!

> HN is one of the highest concentrations of intelligence on the planet [...]

Oh please. It's mostly just another tech forum.

Identical to all the others. No difference whatsoever.

It would be funny if people on HN programmed computers in the same way they talk outside of shop conversations.

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