Ask HN: How do you use upvote on HN? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you use upvote on HN?

70 pointstaubek92 comments

I wonder when do you upvote a story? When you see the interesting headline or after reading the article that it leads to?

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Totally arbitrarily. I'll upvote things I agree with and sometimes things I don't if I think it's a valuable opinion.

For downvoting, I'll generally downvote "Reddit-like" comments and things I disagree with at a level so fundamental that I don't want to dignify it with a response.

I think most people vote on agreement, but in my opinion HN would be a better place if, instead, people voted on the validity of an argument, the effort that went into producing it, the surprise factor of new information or (on the negative side) the extent to which a comment violates the guidelines (lack of kindness, etc.)

I might argue that the more you disagree with a given comment, the more you should be willing to debate it, rather than responding by "not dignifying it with a response". "No response" is a valid strategy when dealing with trolls, but when dealing with opinions, argued in a valid way, one merely disagrees with, I would argue it's self-censorship or a conscious or unconscious effort to use the social media echo chamber in service of one's own opinion and in opposition to the opinion one opposes.

> I might argue that the more you disagree with a given comment, the more you should be willing to debate it

I think this can only be taken to a point before you realise you'll be wasting your time. The most common thing I can think of is someone who glibly speaks from a position of pure ignorance on topics that require real study and knowledge. You could provide a 3 year university course over HN, or you could downvote and try to stop their idiocy infecting more naive minds.

> I think this can only be taken to a point before you realise you'll be wasting your time.

If a waste of time is lack of progress towards a desired outcome, you'd first need to define what the desired outcome is. Arguments on the internet almost never have the effect of persuading the person you're debating of your opinion when they didn't previously hold that opinion already.

But for those on the side lines who merely read through a thread without participating because they simply hold no opinion on the matter at all, or maybe encounter it years later when searching for some information on a search engine, there often is value when both sides of a debate carry it on for as long as they have new information to provide and their time budget will allow.

The termination criterion that's actually in effect most of the time is that a debate is broken off when the overall tone has veered away from civility by too much. That's why we rarely get to see good debates on the internet. They are broken off exactly when they should be getting interesting. ...so that's why I say: It's lack of civility that deserves downvotes, not opposing viewpoints.

Debating, after all, is almost a bit like a sport. Now imagine someone challenges a boxing world champion to a fight, and the world thinks that the fight is worth watching. Now the champion turns it down, thinking to himself "It would be a waste of my time to fight this person who is just so much worse of a fighter". ...that would be unsportsmanlike. And what's the worst that could happen? Either the champion reaffirms his position and the fight is a bit boring (but still good "training"), or it's a Creed vs Rocky kind of thing, where everybody gets an unexpected retune of their respective perceptions. ...either way, if it's a fight the world wants to see, I'd just give it to them.

> Arguments on the internet almost never have the effect of persuading the person you're debating of your opinion when they didn't previously hold that opinion already.

Well yeah because the arguments are all poorly defended; see below. Not going to change my mind because the tide goes in and the tide goes out.

> Debating, after all, is almost a bit like a sport. Now imagine someone challenges a boxing world champion to a fight, and the world thinks that the fight is worth watching. Now the champion turns it down, thinking to himself "It would be a waste of my time to fight this person who is just so much worse of a fighter". ...that would be unsportsmanlike.

Except that if scott_w doesn't comment somebody else can. The analogy breaks down very fast because if the world really thinks somebody should argue with the random person then anybody in the world can. If the world doesn't think that then there'll end up being no replies and the world doesn't care.

Also almost certainly if you ran into a world champion in the street and challenged them to their sport they wouldn't accept

> They are broken off exactly when they should be getting interesting.

As someone who lived through the Brexit debate, I strongly disagree. The damage caused by elevating someone like Daniel Hannan to be comparable to an economist has been incredible. There is no debate, or anything of interest, as you have one side confidently making completely nonsensical claims that sound plausible to someone with no knowledge. On the flip side, the expert displaying their nuanced understanding usually has this used against them in the debate as signs that they don't know what they're talking about.

I don't see what I, or even a more knowledgeable person in the field, would get out of such a "debate" apart from frustration.

...well the brexit vote was split nearly 50/50. The brexiteers were "counter establishment". Do you think the vote would have been 50/50 if better together had run a campaign that was basically "We're Oxbridge-educated economists telling you that brexit is a folly, and Hannan is just a muppet whose wild claims it would be beneath us to respond to"?

I'm not even saying that debate is a fruitful way of deciding anything. For me, it's a framework that frequently makes relevant information come to light. I also enjoy it as a kind of exercise regime to strengthen my intellectual muscle.

Also: What's the alternative? If upvotes/downvotes on HN are just a "popularity contest of opinions", where's the fun in that? Popularity contests are an even worse way than civilised debate to decide anything, or to expose me to information it would be useful for me to get exposed to, or to help me exercise my intellectual muscle. They're just boring.

And it's what's wrong with social media today: If HN is a popularity contest, and HN's majority opinions line up with mine, I will then be an HN-reader who enjoys reading on HN all the opinions I already hold. If they don't line up, it will be a frustrating experience for me to read HN, and I will then no longer be an HN-reader and find another online community whose opinions align better with my own. Where's the fun in that?

Nothing you said has anything to do with the question at hand: "how do you upvote/downvote on HN?" so I'm not going to answer any more of your questions. Going to what I said above, it would be a waste of my time.

> The most common thing I can think of is someone who glibly speaks from a position of pure ignorance on topics that require real study and knowledge.

So voting is really an ego thing? Downvote the views lesser than your own and try to make sure your views, the right ones, prevail? I think that's common here.

Thank you for providing an example of exactly the type of comment I would normally downvote and ignore.

Mostly by interest on the subject, many times I upvote the headline, without reading the article. If I don't like the article or the link, sometimes I remove the upvote. My heuristic is "I would like this subject discussed on HN ; This subject deserves more exposure"

I upvote interesting articles and comments that provide new insight, regardless of whether or not I agree with the perspective.

I only downvote comments that provide no insight whatsoever, while insulting, like "so you think that <insert opinion>... yeah, I can see why you're <insert insult>", or one-liners like "you're wrong" that only assert their incorrectness without saying why.

I basically never vote on anything. I dislike the psychological effect of gamification of conversation. I understand the benefits, but at Reddit, the voting system has a distinctly addictive effect and very quickly degrades all discussion to the lowest common denominator, causing the most popular opinions and jokes to become the loudest and most repeated beyond the natural level. Every sizeable community there quickly becomes repetitive and bland as a result.

I know it's partly community, but it's impossible to completely remove the way that voting-based discussion affects the behaviors of people.

I think it's important to try to get people to not downvote or upvote things irrationally. It's better if upvote highlights higher quality posts, and downvote is reserved for posts that are either in bad faith, or simply low quality (SPAM, memes, that sort of thing.)

In practice, no matter how calm you try to remain, people will get genuinely riled up over surprisingly mundane things, myself included. Voting being one of the stronger signals, people definitely jump to downvote first. It's probably good that HN blocks you from downvoting direct replies.

While the way people vote can be a little annoying (nothing sucks more than being buried after genuinely trying to be reasonable) it does seem like you have to mentally detach from it a bit. There are times on here where I feel compelled to downvote someone I otherwise respect, and it's not like I hold a grudge for almost any negative interaction I've ever had here. Taking it too seriously is probably a disservice.

I agree that the way voting influences discussion is annoying too. For certain topics, it makes less popular opinions less represented even if they're being reasoned about better. This is especially true when it comes to contentious topics here like anything involving iPhone, Meta, Google, etc. where there are very strong opinions that people hold very personally. Generally, HN votes in favor of cynicism, which admittedly works in my favor... But regardless, it's not all bad. Websites without downvoting wind up favoring opinions that people repeat often even if they are truly awful and unpopular. I hate to say it, because I feel like I'm truly being the cliche that I wish I wasn't, but I believe Twitter has done a lot of damage here, as it's easy to see an absolutely awful, very obviously poorly thought out emotional diatribe with 10K upvotes and think "omg! All 8 billion people on earth must actually think this way!" And it sucks, because that social validation probably does help further some really nasty discourse.

One of the more disturbing facets of the gamification of Reddit conversation to me is that the first Redditor ever to achieve 1 million karma is widely (and I think correctly) believed to be Ghislaine Maxwell.

I upvote submissions I'd like to see more discussion about on HN - the comments are why I am here instead of just using my feedreader.

Usually to counter negative voted posts that aren't actually negative, just some people not agreeing with the content, but factually accurate. Rarely when I believe that a post was very well written and I couldn't have said it better.

upvotes for stories: If I read it and enjoyed it

upvotes for comments: if it has an interesting new angle / perspective relating to the story, threads of people arguing about something interesting and bringing up novel points.

downvotes: mostly people doing single line comments, especially on subjects touching 'politics' if they are just repeating common talking points/one-liners.

I don't. I used to when votes worked both as votes and as bookmarks.

At some moment I started bookmarking stories in the browser and gave up voting because somehow I felt humble and decided that my opinion wasn't important for stories, that I'm better as an observer of what's popular. I still upvote some stories every other month for different reasons.

When some submission seems stupid or infuriating I use "hide" instead of flagging it.

I upvote comments when there's something interesting in it or when I see a grayed comment that's factual or when I believe it's just their opinion, they're entitled to it! Why did somebody downvoted that?

I use to upvote every answer to my comments... except when I forget (it happens) or when I think my point wasn't understood. It's not about disagreement, more like "you're not really answering to what I said". Otherwise have it. Sometimes I have a laugh thinking that the other person, that's disagreeing with me in a chain of answers, wouldn't believe that it's me who is upvoting his comments.

I downvote when I feel very bad faith or stupidity. If I realize I'm downvoting too much in a row, I just close the browser and have a cup of tea. Usually I resist downvoting, specially if I realize I have no clue about the topic. But sometimes I can't ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I try to upvote those submissions that in my view best adhere to the guidelines:

"Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."[a]

[a] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

If the subject and content are very good or inspirational, or funny, basically if I appreciate the article, I will upvote. I don’t upvote all mind, I believe I comment and don’t upvote, not sure what drives the rank, in the list, comments and or upvote / timing. Am not actually concerned with the ranking, same with articles, I’m far more often interested in the comments than the actual article

If I see a story that has been made dead or flagged that I think should not be I vouch for it and then upvote it.

If I post something then I am on new page, then I quickly look over page for things I think are high quality in something I am familiar with, then I upvote. Even though, realistically this makes my current submission less likely to get to front because i am upvoting its competitors.

From guidelines: "Anything that good hackers would find interesting."

I always read, or at least skim the story, because most of the time it's clickbait. Sometimes it's really obvious that many people don't read it. There was one with the headline of "Should you trust your gut?" and the story had little to do with guts, but the responses were mostly about guts.

For stories, I usually read them first unless it’s clearly something I already know the story behind and want to boost.

In comments, I (try) to use it for things I feel add to the conversation and should be seen even when I don’t agree. I can admit they sometimes get the other vote though when they get my goat.

I'll upvote a story after reading it if it's interesting and I think that it provides value to the community. Or I guess after reading the first post if it's on Show HN or Ask HN.

Meanwhile for comments, I'll upvote them if I feel they're interesting, contribute to the discussion or give perspectives I wouldn't have considered it before.

I pretty much never upvote for agreement/downvote for disagreement, and wish platforms separated 'this content is good/bad' from 'I agree with this content/disagree with it' in the rating system.

I'd like to imagine I have a consistent pattern in my voting, but it's probably affected by my mood as much as anything. If I'm grumpy, I downvote, and might be guilty of upvoting argumentative comments. If I'm in a good mood, I'll upvote things for being encouraging or insightful.

One general rule I tend to stick to is downvoting lazy comments:

* Using your age as evidence you are right

* Invoking "clickbait" because an otherwise interesting article has an interesting headline

* Moaning about downvotes, the OP not having read the article, or about HN having inconsistent hivemind just like Reddit.

* Hackneyed criticisms, especially when they're off-topic - e.g. "why doesn't this site support users without JavaScript?" or "70s programmers did this so much better"

My problem with upvotes is that a confident, well-written, persuasive comment on a topic about which I know nothing could very well be complete BS. Since I don't know the subject matter or the OP, I have no idea whether it's authoritative.

I sometimes hit down vote semi-automatically, but then force myself to really look at what I just voted on, and normally I end up removing the vote. I try to only downvote trash comments, not just things I disagree with. When I see something that could be interpreted as typical nasty internet vitriol (eg blatant racism, sexism, etc) I will downvote it. If it's kinda borderline and I'm not sure if there's ill intent, then I'll look at the commenter's post history. If it's 50% ranting about black people, then they get downvoted, otherwise there's the benefit of the doubt.

I also keep showdead on, so a lot of my upvoted comments are "rescue votes", from when I see a dead comment that I don't think should be dead.

I also make a point of periodically browsing new, and trying to upvote two or three interesting articles that have no votes.

I usually never upvote threads, the same way I forfeit my political right to vote. Maybe it's just autism, but I don't understand why anyone goes voting -do normal people think their vote makes a difference? My one vote will not decide what's on the frontpage and what's not. To be precise: I only see it because it's on the frontpage already and I feel to busy for sifting through new.

Actually, I do not believe the frontpage is organic at all. Sometimes you see uninteresting crap with zero comments entering the frontpage, leaving it with... zero or just a few comments.

I do sometimes upvote high quality comments and I try to actively downvote and flag spam, which is rare. And I generally upvote people responding to me (unless it's a negative response, which gets a downvote) to encourage giving me responses, as I like to engage.

> My one vote will not decide what's on the frontpage and what's not.

I think it might contribute more than you think, looking at how many points the rising articles have. Especially if your one vote is an early vote.

Is there like a recommendation system for HN based on my upvotes?

Iow: vote early and often?

I upvote any reply to my comments.

(Farce alert) I only upvote in the most selfish way possible : I upvote myself with my other accounts, I upvote all replies and I downvote all other concurrent replies.

I'm kidding...what's the point ? [1]

Seriously, I'm always interested on how MICRO level disparate motives like these here aggregate on the MACRO level (in every area). I sometimes only view the monthly top HN, and I'm often like : "hum, why is this one so popular while this one is not ?"

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders

1. Comments which improve the discussion, whether I agree or not. Usually these are longer informative posts or those giving a particularly interesting view on a subject. 2. Upvote comments which are correct - especially if someone is replying to me correcting (or clarifying) something I said. 3. Comments which make the point I was just typing in.

So you have one "thankyou" case and two "signal boost".

I've noticed that my positive posts usually receive a lot of upvotes and my biggest ratio'd posts are those which are correct and negative.

I upvote articles solely because I want to read more discussion from HN members on it. If I like an article and it doesn’t have many comments I’ll upvote. If it does, I won’t.

I upvote comments either because:

1. I didn’t see it get enough discussion and want to read more, same as articles

2. I want to “bookmark” the comment and come back to it later either as a reference or to read follow up discussion

I rarely downvote except for comments that seem to be flame bait or something triggers me on a primal level

Upvote:

- stories: I think this is interesting

- comments: I think this is interesting and/or I agree with this

Downvote:

- stories: I don't think this is interesting

- comments: I disagree with this comment or don't think it adds anything

Part of what makes HN much better than other online forums is getting deep into comments that challenge opinions on something. Only upvoting things you agree with can lead to a mono-culture like you see in many sub-reddits where opposing views are frequently silenced.

You should re-think your downvote on comments you disagree with. I only downvote comments that don't add to a discussion (or are offensive or stuff like that).

Why? pg himself says downvote on disagreement is fine.

> I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

I disagree with that and gave you an upvote :). Everything is not an absolute (Kenobi enters: "Only a Sith deals in absolutes"). If someone always downvotes everything they disagree with and only upvotes things they agree with, I think that approach should be re-thought. Maybe someone proves you wrong, points out a perspective that you disagree with but is valid, give them an upvote.

pg's comment is also from 14 years ago before bots invaded nearly every public forum online possibly manipulating votes/likes to promote various things.

I strongly disagree with pg on this. Particularly because downvoting leads to comments being hidden / killed.

I think it's a recipe for an echo chamber, and imho HN works only because some users ignore his take on this.

I think your comment is interesting even though I disagree, so I upvoted.

It's perhaps important though I didn't state it, that the strength of my impetus to upvote interesting comments or comments that add value to the discussion is stronger than the strength of the impetus to downvote on disagreement, so when the too clash it's an upvote or no action.

So I don't feel like your worry is a practical issue for hoe I use the voting buttons.

After reading these comments, if something is mediocre and I think it's wrong that still seems like a good reason to use downvote on disagreement (where I don't go around downvoting every mediocre comment, though I could see the argument for doing so).

Thanks! I was looking for this to respond with, as pg's words here are part of the reason I use the site this way.

“This is neat” or “I want to read more comments about this”

I will never upvote something without at least skimming it. Mostly I finish articles then return to HN to upvote them, but occasionally I upvote after leaving the article partway (e.g. because I already know about the subject, or because the first part contained enough information that I'm satisfied, or because I don't understand the subject well but it looks very interesting.)

I usually upvote what I read, often before reading it because it could pass quite a long time before I can do it.

This was a question about upvoting stories, not comments. However many people described how they vote comments, so here's my take on that.

I never upvote to agree with something and never downvote to show disagreement. Actually I probably never downvoted anything.

I upvote for interesting contributions or to say thanks.

The older I get the more I shun the idea of rigorous process or frameworks. If something feels upvote worthy, it gets an upvote. Pure gut.

Usually after reading what it points to. I also upvote potentially controversial things because I want to hear people’s opinions on it.

I upvote interesting stories

I upvote some comments I agree with and all comments that I disagree with that I think might lead to interesting discourse (eg, I want to be sure other people see the comment and respond to it). In other words, I most often reliably upvote when I want to see more objections.

I downvote all flip, lazy, joke comments, and cynical one-liners.

I never upvoted the item itself. However, I frequently upvote comments. Those that I find valuable to my own personal experience, or answers to my own comments, in particular when the answer is helpful or when I see the author took the time to write a good answer even if I don't agree with it.

I use it as a bookmarking tool, eg for a tool I’d like to test out but don’t have time atm, an article to read later etc.

Same here, HN is my bookmarker of “all around interesting pages and opinions”. If I find something interesting that’s not on HN, I post it so it can be bookmarked.

Anything that I agree with, finds funny, deserves awareness and/or is factual, BUT only if I feel like upvoting, so naturally I don't upvote everything that falls within those criteria; I also upvote other things once in a while, but those are usually my general guidelines.

If I feel like my life has been made better by the comment/link, I upvote.

If the comment/link is not actionable, and/or results in wasting time or my life worsening, or encourages social problems, especially a breakdown in communication (such as baseless emotional appeals or polarizing comments), I downvote.

When I open the website/view what is the link. But I suspect lots of people are upvoting only from the titles.

Sometimes this happens also to me, but then I read the article and if it’s a “scam” I remove the upvote.

Generally speaking, I upvote a story when I found it interesting, I learn something new, or the story made me think.

I use upvote so that I can see at a glance which comments I have read in a thread with alot of comments. It doesn''t matter whether I like the comment or not. I use it like an email "read email" flag, but "read comment" in the case of HN

I am basically a long-time lurker, and recently decided to make an account here.

Basically, for me, i just wanted to have the ability to kind of 'boost' posts i thought were interesting / informative and i want those posts to be seen by more people.

I think for the vast majority the upvote button functions as a highlight. In other words, everyone who says they want to see this post in the front row presses the upvote button. Compared to other platforms, I think this is healthier.

For things that add to the conversation whether I personally agree with them or not.

I don’t quote @dang on here often, but that is the idea right?

-- me too - often I disagree - but - if it's value add it's going up --

That’s a pretty brave thing to say around here, did you get that notion from pg’s writings or is it more of a personal conviction?

-- team work makes the dream work - takes a village- etc- teams are not all playing the same position - lot of philosophy existing around diversity of thought being important - let us embrace it!! =) --

Statistically diverse groups are more likely to be be optimal than narrow groups if we assume a uniform distribution over ability.

As a personal anecdote I worked on a hard-ass backend team of pushing 40 people and I was one of two of my ethnic background, and one of one of my socioeconomic background: but me and the other person pulled our weight while also profiting tremendously from the folks of different backgrounds.

A belief that diversity is bad for achieving outcomes is basically synonymous with racism or classism or sexism, and despite the moral failings of those isms, the more empirical failing is worse outcomes.

-- in Korea we have huge issue around thought homogeneity - see the failure of it daily - that's why im against it --

I don’t know much about Korea or Korean work culture but it sounds germane on your reference to some of the monoculture issues that plague SV.

Can you suggest any resources that would help me compare and contrast in an enlightening way?

https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=135265

^ 2013 - things got worst —-

I seldom upvote (and I can't downvote). Why bother? Can't see whether or not it's had any appreciable effect. Can't see the vote count. I already know other signals are used to determine rankings.

HN makes it hard to read a downvoted comment by dimming it. That has acted as a demotivator for me to downvote a heavily downvoted comment. I upvote them in the hope that I will be able to read them.

Not that this is the same thing, but in case you didn't know you're always able to read comments on HN, even redacted ones, by inspecting the stylesheet. I really like this compromise that they've made.

CTRL+A solves this readability issue easily, but I don't think this (dimming) is the right way treating the comments (HN should just allow sorting like Chronological, most upvoted, basically Reddit sorting since it use reddit tags anyway) and just display everything according user setting. I also don't like flagged comments being collapsed, no matter the reason they are flagged for, anyone/any brigade/bots can hide this way comments they don't like.

I almost never upvote a story... only ever comments i think warrant more notice.

Upvotes: When I want a story to reach others.

Favourite: When I want to save a story for myself

I only upvote headlines if I think the article is valuable to the community. I see a lot of stuff that I don't think is all that valuable, so I wish there was a downvote button as well for headlines.

I upvote anything that can be interpreted as opposition against SPAs. From something as naive as a new Django release, to the HTMX manifest, and even an article literally saying "I hate SPAs".

I don't upvote or downvote too much, but I favorite things that I think will be useful for projects/ideas bouncing around my head.

Might start voting more after reading some of these comments.

Haven’t seen my related use case mentioned: I frequently upvote posts as a private favorites list, as favorites is public and can feel kind of revealing.

I go straight to comments normally and if those are insightful and interesting i upvote the story. Hardly ever read the article; unintended usually but the article said enough.

Wow. That is the exact opposite of what I do.

"Never read the comments!" is my general guideline, unless I want to know what people are saying.

I also often jump to comments first. To see if the article is worth reading.

I upvote to add the article to my “Read Later” collection. This also means the article is either interesting or might be useful to get back to when I have more time.

After reading and enjoying and gaining something from what I read, or a comment saying what I was about to write (usually written better than I would have myself)

I upvote all the ones around the ones I want to downvote.

I upvote when it brings something to the discussion, or when a post correctly corrects unsubstantiated post/s but I have no time to post myself.

I upvote if, the content / comment is interesting / awesome / deserves more support / says what I was going to say.

The latter, though I have to admit, in many cases, I end up upvoting comments more than submitters.

I read the article and if I think it’s interesting or the comments might be interesting, I upvote.

Far too liberally, to balance what seems a bit of a harsh feel to the moderation, at times.

I always click the link before upvoting. I've been fooled by titles many times.

I upvote anything funny, anything I strongly agree with, and any robust comments

I agree with tons of comments or articles that I don't upvote.

An upvote is reserved for a comment that I think nails a perspective that I think is spot-on but uncommon. For an article, it's usually something that I think is interesting but not likely to be super popular (something about language qualified the other day – it's nerdy, but not computers, so I boosted it). The goal is to get more people to see it and discuss it, cause that's why I like this board: Discussion.

For downs, only people who are unnecessarily snarky or completely missing the point with arguments that aren't addressing the issue on which they comment.

I read HN every day. I maybe vote (either way) once or twice a day.

I like to click on buttons

If I've read it before and I consider it up vote worthy, then I upvote.

If it's something I've read and I want save it for later, I also upvote it.

If I didn't read it before and it's upvote worthy, then I upvote.

If it's something I'd like to see discussed on HN, I upvote.

Tldr: only if I've read it

Both, it depends.

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