Ask PG: Are people getting more liberal with their downvotes?

<i>"If I disagree with someone, I won't vote up. If I really disagree with someone, I'll post a rejoinder comment."</i><p>I haven't been here very long but I've thought that expressing disagreement isn't the purpose of a downvote at all. Instead, it's meant to indicate that a post detracts from the discussion and probably shouldn't have been posted to begin with. Using downvotes to express disagreement would only result in discussions becoming more intellectually homogeneous, which would make the site much less valuable.<p>I'm not sure how the site can encourage people to use downvotes more appropriately, but I think that there is a higher risk of having trolls pollute the site than of downvotes deterring legitimate discussion (has anyone felt like leaving the site or not posting a comment because you feared that your perspective would get you down-modded? I'm not aware of such an instance but if it has happened to someone than that is a big problem that should be talked about).

The ratio of downvotes to up doesn't seem any different than it's always been. But because there are now more voters, the most downvoted comments get more total downvotes.

A single up-down arrow system is fracked. Are you agreeing or disagreeing? Are you recommending or dis-recommending? Can you tell the difference? Are you acting petty or noble? Do you like or dislike the poster? Did he/she take you to the cleaners the last time you disagreed online?<p>These systems do not promote healthy, honest, respectful discussion. They promote lock-step agreement with wherever the majority is going. Most people vote their emotions, not their head. With that in mind, the karma system is a system to enforce that overall you're going to say things people mostly agree with -- not that they find interesting or new.<p>This leads to a "me too" board, where there are pre-decided opinions on everything and posters struggle to pat each other on the back in new and interesting ways.<p>I exaggerate, but only to a point. As you can see on other boards, this is a real and deleterious condition. (Please insert John Stuart Mill's argument for the utility of listening to minority opinions here)

I've been down-voting some comments because it seems like everyone is up-voting any old comment. It's ridiculous for someone's "I liked this article" type of comment to be up-voted.<p>I thought up-votes for something special, to be given out once in a while as a way of saying "your comment affected me in a deep way, thank you". If you give out up-vote willy-nilly then no one really cares about writing a thoughtful comment.<p>Here's an example of bad up-voting: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=213070" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=213070</a> What the fuck's the point of the up-vote there? Does dangoldin really need to be up-voted 6 times to indicate that his comment was useful? Wouldn't 1 up-vote be enough?<p>Anyway, I need a coffee and it's just a number.

I think if you give someone the option to downvote, there are always going to be people who do whatever they want with it. Telling someone not to downvote if they disgree with a well-presented argument is like telling someone not to post crap in the first place (or not to upvote crap, for that matter). Most will abide by the guidelines, but there's nothing you can do to stop the minority from misusing abusing it. Unfortunately, the wrong minority is enough to ruin the feature (or even the community, although I don't think that has happened here).

The exact OPPOSITE trend is what I've noticed and am more worried about. Lately it seems there is an increasing number of inane posts being upvoted to the front page. Karma-bombing seemed more prevalent a while back when it was easier to do.

I got downvoted for saying it's not proper etiquette to passive-aggressively downvote. I just chalk it up as one of those stupid things you come across every now and then and move on. There's other more important stuff to worry about.

I've had my own encounters with the downmod problem (we all have) and I won't repeat them here in the interest of brevity. But here's a suggestion for handling it. Can't tell if it's pie-in-the-sky, so input's encouraged...<p>Most of us make it a habit to abide by the news.YC "guidelines," such as not changing the text of submitted headlines unless it's needed for clarification, and not adding comment signatures. And it's an easy thing to police because there's accountability. Case in point, I've only seen a signature once, and another user had pointed to the users' misstep by the time I noticed it.<p>But there's no accountability for downmodding. There really can't be, else you injure the chance for honest opinions from people afraid of the kickback. But what if there was a single line of text you needed to include with a downmod? Something short, like 25-40 characters, that explained your reason. The community would recognize anonymous feedback like "Trolling" and "Unnecessary personal attack" as reasonable motives for downmodding, and "Bad point" or "Stupid idea" as unreasonable.<p>It wouldn't eliminate the problem -- I don't think anything anonymous could -- but it might create some mechanism for policing indiscriminate downmods and encouraging fair use.<p>Of course where you'd display that information is another issue entirely...

After reading all of the comments, it seems clear that most of the community wants some sort of "downvote" mechanism to assure that comments and articles lacking quality do not reach the front page and do not "clog" up the HN community.<p>It also seems clear that HN wants to tweak the system so that it's fair, doesn't allow for people who simply disagree without just reason to downvote an article, and holds the integrity of the community.<p>I have to add that any system implemented has to be simple but effective (two sets of downvotes is not simple, for example).<p>So my suggestions:<p>- Downvotes still exist to make sure articles and comments lacking quality, or are clearly karma-bombs designed to bring something to the front page. - You can't downvote until you've gotten to understand the community. That means a minimum Karma limit, say 50, that signifies that you've contributed to HN enough to know the general rules of the community and some of the nuances that make HN what it is. You could also make it so you can't upvote or downvote after say, 25 karma. The number's arbitrary, the point is that you need to time to understand the community before you start downvoting items.<p>- Karma count doesn't appear until there's -3 or +3. That eliminates initial biases and "peer pressure" voting for an article starting out. Not ideal, but could work.<p>- Most of all, we must remember that, if a person is submitting quality, any downvotes they get for any reason is going to be balanced out by a greater amount of upvotes.<p>No system is perfect, but you need downvotes for quality control. Let those who have more connection to the community do that work if necessary.

We had a similar conversation about down voting a few months back, I just can't find the thread anywhere. I do remember PG saying that he thought that it was okay to down vote something that you disagreed with as well as down vote non-quality comments.

I'd say there's more downmodding only in that there's more modding in general. Far more 10+ point comments now than six months ago, as well as far more -10 point comments.<p>I only rarely see negative-karma comments that don't deserve it one way or another.<p>Furthermore, <i></i>penis<i></i>.

And I say does it really matter in the grand scheme of things? So you got downvoted in a virtual community...my gosh the mind reels.

I just think people feel peer pressure to downvote when someone already has karma less than 1. Does anyone else think this is true?

Short answer: yes.<p>Long answer: it's just a changing user base. I won't elaborate in this comment though, just that's an article in and of itself.

i agree this is happening, and that it's a problem.<p>i think the karma threshold for downvote ability should be raised to, say, 60. if you can stick around for that long, you're more likely to understand the community's values.

Well, my version of Hacker News has no "down button". Is my browser broken?

Do you really care that much about your karma here? Just ignore it, it's just a number. It's not a video game.<p>Obviously, the most interesting, useful comments are often going to be controversial. In cases where people downvote stuff they don't like (which is a proxy for, does not fit my worldview), these comments will not get the most points. This means you shouldn't care too much about points except that they tell you where the conventional wisdom lies.<p>Personally I downvote something if I think it's dumb. Since there is more stupidity here now, it seems, there are more downvotes. That's good.

i can testify that getting mass downmodding for saying something unpopular was common about 9 months ago. it seems the same to me now.

there is no downvote button for me on this site