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Comment by aboodman | Hacker News Reader

Why does the fucking kudos dot auto-kudo on mouseover!?

Dustin seems like a smart guy, and the article makes sense and everything, but then my mouse casually tracks across that dot and it starts-a-throbbing, and I'm like "oh crap oh crap, what is this? do i want it?, omigod, I don't know, oh no, move fast before something happens!" and then I don't remember what the number was before and I'm not sure if I kudo'd or not, and my heart is racing, and I've lost a few hours off my lifespan...

And this is all before I realize it's a fucking counter on a webpage, and it doesn't matter whether I increment it or not.

I hate you auto-kudo, I hate you so much.

View on HN

So it's clever and quirky. Yeah, it's not a scientific poll. I used to get pretty annoyed with that because your gut reaction is, "hey! I didn't know that would happen! I didn't give your consent to count my vote!". But really, when you take a step back, you realize that internet karma means absolutely, positively, nothing.

It's really all meaningless Internet points. The auto-voting karma button reminds me of that, and I now appreciate the digital "up yours!" every once in a while ;)

I think we're trained to feel anxious about it because of services like Facebook where clicking an upvote button not only delivers a point but puts your name behind it and potentially broadcasts that to your friends and followers.

Nah. Humans have been susceptible to meaningless points since the dawn of time.

I'm not addressing proclivity, only the anxiety expressed by the OP.

I think calling it meaningless, while helpfully putting it in context (first world problems, etc.) is still a bit inaccurate. Sure, the kudos number on a Svbtle blog is basically meaningless, but more generally, karma points on a post can serve two important purposes:

1) Social signaling. Others approve of the post, which factors into your own judgment heuristics when encountering it.

2) Upvotes and downvotes are the basis of vote-ranked message board systems like HN and Reddit, and they result in very interesting dynamics (whether or not these dynamics are optimal is another question altogether).

So no, I'd say internet karma points aren't exactly meaningless in certain contexts.

Sorry, bro.

Life is so hard right now.

I will try to carry on somehow.

This is deliberate: http://dcurt.is/unkudo

seems like it, why not just invent a big number?

But inventing a big number is exactly what this "functionality" is doing. Think of it as a crowdsourced RNG.

If you as a designer, ignore how your system makes user feels, you're doing UX wrong. System should bring joy to user, not cause annoyance.

That post is just a rationalization.

"People feel like part of their soul by a CSS animation.. I think it’s kind of funny.", is no different than

"People feel like a part of their soul is extracted by a single eval statement... I think it's kind of funny"

Granted there are some requests that might be ignored with ease, like someone hating on something because of your opinion, but feelings of users should be appealed to.

The Kudo is either:

A) deliberate ploy to seem more interesting than it is

B) a badly designed +1 button

It is a very clever feature that allows lazy people to appreciate the content with no effort (zero clicks). We got used to seeing upvote links everywhere and tend to ignore it over time, and thus become lazy to click it. Plus there are even websites that ask you for a new "user account" just for the upvote which, further decreases the chances of clicking. With all that, dcurtis increases the chances by actually "making" you upvote, not even with any "clicks". practical.

UI trolling.

I've also noticed that you can't undo it now.

> I hate you auto-kudo, I hate you so much.

The fact that you hate it makes me love it, and I even can't explain why.

it's part of the svbtle platform, the autokudos if you stay over it for 5 seconds. move your pointer away and it won't give any kudos. just don't fall asleep on it.

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