HACKER Q&A
📣 MasterYoda

Pros and cons on up and down voting on comments


Disqus is a big commenting platform, and now they have started to show the down voting count on comments (but not who did it) [1].

So I was interested to hear the opinions from all smart people here at HN around this topic about up and down voting on comments and what people think is the most constructive way to make and promote a "positive atmosphere" in a "chat community", around this.

I can see down voting could have good sides, but also make things "negative" and "toxic". Right now I haven't decided what I think about this and wanted to here others opinions.

So what do people see the pros and cons are and what do people prefer in an chat/forum?:

(1) - no voting

(2) - up vote counting visible only

(3) - up vote counting & you could also see who did the up voting

(4) - up & down vote counting, but you could only see who did the up voting

(5) - up & down vote counts visible only

(6) - up & down vote counting & you could also see who did the up & down voting

(7) - something else, what?

[1] Bringing Back Downvotes https://blog.disqus.com/bringing-back-downvotes

  👤 CM30 Accepted Answer ✓
Personally, I prefer it when you can rate posts on a multitude of factors, like with XenForo post ratings or Facebook reactions or what not. That way instead of the downvote button being used as a dislike button, you can split those into more relevant categories like disagree, spam, poor quality, etc. Same with the upvotes, which can say whether people find the content interesting, creative, etc.

As for the other questions? Well, I guess whether seeing votes is useful depends on the community, especially its size and whether the topic is particularly controversial. I have no issues with people seeing who voted on my gaming specific forums, but I suspect a political forum with a similar system will quickly become utter hell.

Still, those are my thoughts on it. Categories for upvotes/downvotes should be the norm on any community with a voting system, and votes should only be public if the community can handle it well.

👤 x2f10
There should be no voting.

I has no positive attribute. It encourages low-quality posts, encourages internet addiction, discourages varied viewpoints, etc. It eventually ruins all communities.

Report button? Yes! Voting? No.