Edit: I propose adding the following to HN's stylesheet:<p><pre><code> a:hover img {opacity: .5;}
a[href*=dir\=up] {-webkit-tap-highlight-color: #8ae58a;}
a[href*=dir\=down] {-webkit-tap-highlight-color: #e58a8a;}
</code></pre>
This will help alleviate the problem without requiring any backend coding.<p>Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/O3Mm7.png
The iPad and iPhone are especially dangerous when it comes to accidental downvoting. Separating or enlarging the arrows would help those of us with fat fingers.
I've never seen a down arrow (405 karma as of this writing). I've been imagining it would look just like the up arrow except upside down? My mouse precision is superior, so I will only be accidentally clicking the down arrow when I'm on my CR-48.
I don't yet have sufficient karma to downvote, but personally, I'd like to see all downvotes accompanied with a note or counter-point.<p>Perhaps an additional "are you sure" popup after a downvote would serve the purpose. From there, instead of downvoting spam, we could use a flag button.
For confused noobs or folks who don't spend too much time on hacker news, you need 500 karma points to be able to downvote.<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1853529" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1853529</a>
I don't remember ever upvoting by mistake, but sometimes I do want to save a link but not upvote. I think it will be useful if one can save a link without upvoting.
It happens <1% of the time for me. It's not that big of a deal to me.<p>Of course, something might as well be done to prevent it entirely. It's weird how I get a hover icon on what is supposed to be the void between the upvote and downvote arrows.
While we all click the wrong arrow from time to time in the grand scheme of things it's probably a small percentage of the overall clicks.<p>I've probably clicked two or three wrong arrows out of thousands of clicks, which makes it pretty much a non-issue.
It would be great even if we could change our option later. I sometimes think an article is really interesting, and upvote it -- but later think "maybe not". Vice versa, sometimes "boring" articles just need some time to sink in.
I once had a comment from a guy came here from reddit apologizing for an accidental downvote.<p>I have accidentally clicked the wrong arrow several times. I can remember I wished if I can fix my mistake each time.
One could simply put the arrows next to each other instead of above one another.<p>Ex: [up] [down] x points by username 17 hours ago | link<p>Instead of:<p>[u] x points by username 17 hours ago | link<p>[d]
Stackoverflow solves this problem by giving you a (fairly narrow) window to rescind the cote or change your mind.<p>I've never had this problem on a laptop/desktop but on the iPhone/iPad? Lots of times unfortunately.