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Comment by spoiledtechie | Hacker News Reader

This is getting ridiculous. Why do we up vote something that is a given? HN, stop it! You only up vote things that make you learn something. Why on earth did pohl just get 16 points for nothing.

We need to stop with the promoting of things like "thank you" or "good job"

Im sorry, I just went on a little rant. The cover is awesome, but did I just learn anything from pohl? I don't care to see this comment over more informative comments below.

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Thank you for mentioning this.

(Couldn't resist a little joke at your expense, sorry about that. I actually appreciated the parent comment -- most of the time I never play videos, because they take me out of my normal flow. But due to his comment, I actually watched this one, and am now impressed.)

No, it's useful. It means that with N upvotes, N people agree with the comment.

That gives a great indicator as to whether or not the video is worth my time. The comment could have easily said that the video is a waste of time, which would also be helpful. People won't upvote it if they disagree.

An upvote doesn't necessarily mean that you agree with the comment. They are supposed to mean that the comment is worthwhile or adds something to the discussion. IMO, the ggp comment doesn't.

They mean whatever the upvoter wants them to mean: agreement, approval, or a meant-to-click-downvote instead. In practical use, people often do upvote because they agree.

So I'm a newbie here, my account is less than a year old, god knows I've trolled and flamed my share, etc. But when I first joined, I saw the guideline/notion that upvotes should indicate contribution to discussion rather than agreement and was impressed. I'd be sad if this position was abandoned. Upvoting for contribution to discussion promotes good discussion. Upvoting for agreement promotes hivemind, of whichever variety.

In 2009, I wrote a little parody of the Zen of Python that includes a bit about what I felt upvotes were/should be used for: http://marcuscavanaugh.com/zen-of-hn/ -- I think that regardless of what guidelines were created initially, people do upvote as agreement, whether we like it or not.

I like upvotes as an expression of agreement because it gives an indication of the truthiness of the comment (wisdom of the crowd). If someone says something in a field I'm not familiar with, and I don't know if they're right or not, I know that the following will occur:

- If they're right, people will upvote.

- If they're wrong, people will either downvote or reply stating why they're wrong.

And since I don't think any of us want comments like "I Agree", upvotes are our only option for providing a vote of confidence in a comment.

The only situation where I'll upvote or downvote based on "agreement" or "disagreement" is statements of fact--and even then, inane statements of fact that don't contribute to the discussion, I don't upvote.

But you're only going to up vote things that you agree with that also add to the conversation. Of course people up vote things they agree with, but in the case of something like the comment that started this all off, did it really add much to the conversation? I didn't think so, but it wasn't frivolous enough for me to down vote it. You're free to disagree and up vote all you want.

As a side note: truthiness, as defined by Colbert [1] isn't something that a crowd can tell you. It's something that only your gut can tell you. And my gut says that your comment wants a burrito.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness

At least in this case, people can upvote his comment rather than posting the same comment themselves. It's a way of contributing, "I feel the same way," without cluttering up the threads with a million "me too" posts.

> They are supposed to mean...

Url?

This is a fairly longstanding consensus here. It comes up every now and again though, and my position isn't the only one. Some believe up votes can mean agreement, but that obviously this has a limit. Since a down vote definitely doesn't mean disagreement, it only follows that the opposite shouldn't mean agreement. That would only serve to dilute the conversation. Like I said though, this is just a rough consensus.

Here is a previous HN discussion on comments [1].

And I'll save you the trouble of reading through to an even earlier discussion[2] where PG weighed in to say "I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement." But this was on a different topic regarding troll-like behavior, so it's not entirely clear what his thoughts are.

But a person is going to use their up votes to mean whatever they want them to mean. If you want to up vote in agreement, go ahead, no one is going to stop you. I only up vote things I agree with if I think it adds to the conversation. So while I thought the linked video was impressive and a great way to see the product, I'm not going to up vote a comment that doesn't add much. You are free to disagree.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=214398

[2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

But shouldn't the votes on the link itself already be enough to decide that?

I don’t think many people on HN like watching videos. Linking only to videos is often criticized. My assumption would always be that most people on HN do not watch videos if it doesn’t seem obvious what additional information the video could provide (like in this case).

Pohl’s comment makes perfect sense in that context. My assumption would be – and this might also be pohl’s assumption – that the video would simply not be watched if nobody says that the video is truly worth watching.

Yes, that was my motivation.

What's with this hostility on HN lately? Everyone has a choice to upvote or not and some people use upvotes as a way to identify with a response. I got the same vibes in the Instagram resume post yesterday. You are not protecting the quality of a community by barking at every behavior you don't approve of. This arrogance has been a turnoff lately. Maybe it's just me or I only come across the pessimistic comments.

Why on earth did pohl just get 16 points for nothing

Whoa there, cowboy.

I posted that so that those who clicked-through to the article but impatiently left would stay for the demonstration.

Only lever-pushing, pellet-munching hamsters care about the points.

P.S. I modded you up.

Its not the points I care about. Its the fact that it was the top rated item. I would rather have something at the top I can take away from.

My one line of text pales next to the off-topic meta rant thread you spawned though, doesn't it. Had you been motivated by the noise and not the points you wouldn't have done that. Or shouldn't have, at least. (+1 from me again)

good point, but comments that hi-jack a thread should be down voted :)

I have to say, I agree. Just think about all those starving kids in Ethopia with no upvotes and here we are on HN sitting in our comfortable Aeron chairs just pissing our upvotes away.

Proof positive we are in the karma bubble here!!

do you think you have any credibility to teach people here what to vote for? With 1.57 avg?

What does his average have to do with it? spoiledtechie has been around much longer than you or I, and was only expressing his opinion about the usefulness of the top comment.

Now I happen to disagree with him and may down-vote the comment because I think meta-discussions about the quality of HN are much more annoying than any decline in quality that may or may not exist, but that has nothing to do with his credibility, and neither does his karma, comment average, or much of anything else.

>What does his average have to do with it?....neither does his karma, comment average, ...

in his post spoiledtechie clearly connected upvotes/points and informativeness. If we accept that connection, having 1.57 average, he can't credibly make statements about informativeness.

Of course he can. This is the old point about reviewers not having to be creators again.

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