Unfortunately, with the UI and people's natural tendencies, it's unavoidable that votes be used for quick-and-easy agreement/disagreement.
At the moment yes, but why not:
Agree/Disagree Good contribution/Poor Contribution.
Instead of just up/down.
At the moment yes, but why not:
Agree/Disagree Good contribution/Poor Contribution.
Instead of just up/down.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=214521
I know it'd be a challenge to work in without clutter/confusion, but by -- (1) achieving some visual separation from up/down (perhaps by placing to the right, or near 'reply'); (2) keeping it faded/invisible until mouseover; (3) displaying the total subtly, as with a sparkline -- I think it could work.
The controls on Twitter web pages for favorite/reply/delete are an example of the state-of-the-art for unobtrusive per-item operational controls.
That way, agreement/disagreement and good/bad are separated, and displayed nicely.
UP for agree (Propably the most common action)
LEFT for good contribution / insightful / well-constructed argument
DOWN for disagree
RIGHT for bad contribution / troll
This would enable rating of votes in 2 dimensions and may possibly map to a page layout (ie agree+good at top left, then the not so good but still agreed being placed further to the right)
Could alternatively have the comments coloured based on good/bad value (probably some sort of logarithmic scale) and sorted vertically by agree/disagree value, which would still allow conversation threads...