Comment by epenn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by epenn | Hacker News Reader

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I fully agree. I've seen far too many comments that are meaningful or insightful - even ones I don't agree with - get unnecessarily downvoted without proper cause. On a discussion forum where one of its main objectives is to be a safe haven for intelligent discourse this is unacceptable. With that said, this is my officially unofficial guide to downvoting:

NEVER downvote:

1) Just because you disagree with a post.

2) Because you dislike the poster.

3) Because others have downvoted a comment into oblivion and you want to jump on the bandwagon. i.e. No need to kick a comment when it's already down.

4) When you have not explicitly reasoned out why you are downvoting beforehand.

DO downvote:

1) Because the comment is derogatory or offensive.

2) Because the comment is factually incorrect.

3) Because the comment is off topic and/or does not add to the conversation.

4) Because the comment lacked any meaningful content. Ex: "Yes!", "Nice post!", "LOL!", etc.

Ultimately the golden rule applies here. Do not downvote any comment for a reason that you yourself would be upset over if someone used that same reason to downvote a comment of yours. In short, just put some thought into it.

Being on-topic, polite and factually correct are all virtues that I would expect in a typical HN poster. We should prefer comments which reflect these virtues!

However, regardless of what we intend, I think upvoting and downvoting equate to 'I like' and 'I no like'. We should embrace this de facto reality.

People, including good people with sound judgments, cannot always explain their choices at the time they make them, nor is this desirable.

When people downvote foolishly, in many cases they will have lost their tempers. In such cases sober rules like 'only downvote comments which do not add to the discussion' may go out of the window.

This can't be fixed by exhorting users not to get angry or not to comment when angry, for people can be goaded into anger in subtle, malicious ways (which cannot themselves be easily captured and prevented by other rules). And people can deny that they are angry, even to themselves.

Anyway, effective rules must remain stable under such conditions, which is no mean task.

One way is to engineer new rules into the system itself.

For instance, improvement might be brought about if downvoting, in addition to costing the downvotee one point, cost the downvoter one karma point. People would then refrain from frivolous downvoting, but I believe would still downvote inappropriate, thread-damaging comments. This is partly because good people tend to have more karma and well as better judgment. It also reflects human psychology. Getting angry always costs the angry person.

I would add to the "factually incorrect".

It is better to reply and correct wrong facts, also people just sometimes get things wrong and can write a good post in the context of something that might be a bit inaccurate.

Also it may be beneficial if something is wrong but believed by many people to have the content and the correction displayed prominently on the page.

The "factually incorrect" is a tricky one because often the downvoters may be misinformed about the topic themselves. I agree with some others that in such a situation it is much better to reply with a correction instead of downvoting. Simply downvoting in this instance is bordering on "I disagree with this".

In fact, I would argue even if the original poster was misinformed, starting a thread of conversation which will inform him and potentially others, will still have an overall positive outcome for the community.

Aside from this, the other criteria are a good list in my opinion.

If you downvote, you should be obligated to leave a comment. Downvoting otherwise feels like a victimless crime. I exaggerate obviously, but the lack of feedback stunts learning especially if you take the time to read the article and offer commentary.

I'll add another. If the person the article is about comments don't downvote it just because they're being a bit rude. People reading an article generally want to hear what the person the article is about has to say, and downvoting them makes it harder to read those comments.

Remember, downvoting is supposed to be useful. That's why it exists.

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