I wish you couldn't down vote without a comment | Hacker News Reader

I wish you couldn't down vote without a comment

1 pointsharemywin12 comments

This idea has been around for as long as downvotes have, but I think it would hurt, not help. It would lead to a ton of low-quality comments and filler, much of which would be nasty and provoke further conflict. This exchange, from the current thread, provides a perfect example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35250202.

So no, we're not going to do that. Sorry!

There are two problems with this approach.

First, there are more comments that are either factually wrong or interpersonally toxic than I have time to reply to. Downvoting is quick.

Second is the recursion problem. If I downvote and reply "factually wrong", then some people (either trolls or mistaken) may downvote my reply and say "no, you're wrong!" To say the least, that doesn't lead to a productive conversation.

As I don't have the karma to downvote, my approach, which is likely to remain unchanged even if I ever get to the appropriate karma threshold, is to simply ignore. My mindset on this has been (and not saying it needs to be anyone else's) that my parents taught me ignore taunts, bullies, etc. and I simply extended it to this. I don't even want to put in the effort of downvoting to give the impression that I find someone's post or comment worth the effort of doing so.

We bullies were drawn to prey who didn't fight back and didn't tattle. The harder our quarry attempted to remain aloof, the more comical the show.

But If I was factually wrong. I would at least know I'm being fact checked.

And I have no way to respond to a downvote.

or maybe you can select an option when you downvote.

toxic/trolling, factually wrong, etc.

If one was to think about that if it were implemented, it would mean of the many many readers who see a comment they think isn't greatly important to the discussion or topic - to push it downwards, they would have to comment - thread reponses would sprawl into pages, and their own posts add to the clutter.

In most open discussion areas, Jerks and Ideologues (read very opinionated) exist, along with the humble people, who if they're lucky aren't having or at the end of a real bad day. Such that it is, some people won't invest much time to read carefully or really take the time to consider counter views if some of the comment conflicts with their world view on the topic. However on the other hand, some post comments seem to be nowhere near or relevant to the discussion, and certainly deserve a down vote.

I don't know if it is a karma threshold or not, but I have never been able to downvote a post and/or comment. Only upvote or flag.

am wondering how to get downvoting capabilities too.

Downvoting requires 500 karma. (Maybe 501...)

See, that would be useful info to put on the FAQ page, instead it just says "After users reach a certain karma threshold".

I downvoted you. Here's your comment.

At least I know you didn't really have an argument against me. just being a throwaway account. instead of crickets.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com