Request HN: Add Upvote Count to Comments | Hacker News Reader

Request HN: Add Upvote Count to Comments

6 pointsuptownfunk9 comments

Would it be possible to display the upvote count to comments? Is there a reason not to do this?

FWIW, that's the way things used to be. The powers-that-be made a conscious decision to disable that about 12 years ago. You can read some of that discussion at

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2434975

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2403696

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2677581

etc. Search will turn up a few other threads discussing this issue over the years.

Interesting my intention was to be able to see roughly what proportion of readers held the same opinion of the commenter.

Eg maybe instead of vote counts it was percent of upvotes or something.

I believe pg felt that people shouldn't have access to that information. The idea being, I think, that people should decide entirely independently, based on the merits of the comment judged in isolation, whether to upvote or not. As opposed to, say, a situation where a bunch of people upvote a comment for no other reason than "a bunch of other people already upvoted it."

Not saying I agree or disagree with that one way or the other, and my memory of all of this could be a bit off by now. But that's approximately the way I remember the discussion going years ago.

> my intention was to be able to see roughly what proportion of readers held the same opinion of the commenter

Ideally, someone upvotes a comment because the comment is thoughtful, not because the user agrees. While obviously not everyone does that, enough do.

The EA Forum has two pairs of buttons: upvote/downvote (quality) and I agree/I disagree. Here’s more on that: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/2JQQZevGENbChSA8k/...

Got it thanks for clarifying !

>Is there a reason not to do this?

Brigading but also, people tend to associate votes with something being correct (like reddit). More important is the discussion, because there is no guarantee the people upvoting something are actually qualified to say it is correct.

If you want that feature, could we suggest heading over yo Reddit?

That issue has been discussed and decided.

That would destroy this place, just as it has Metafilter, Reddit, and every other forum that has done so.

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