Should we eliminate downvoting on HN?

> Perhaps people have ideas they'd like to discuss, but don't want to risk "losing points" because the idea may be unpopular. I know that I have personally experienced this, and stopped myself from expressing an idea because I've been pretty sure it wouldn't be popular.

This is a problem with your mindset, not the HN system. You should not place significant concern on collecting Internet karma. I currently have over 18,000 karma, and I happily and regularly have expressed thoughts and opinions that get me -4'd. (Basically, as low as you can go on a given comment.) Doing so has not hurt me in any meaningful capacity, or even, obviously, in a meaningless HN karma capacity. Post unpopular views.

I'm mostly aware that a certain crowd will downvote anytime I point out that Section 230 should be repealed, that we'd all be better off as a society if Google stopped existing as a website and corporate entity tomorrow, or that unlimited data is a bad thing for ISPs to offer, etc. Sometimes I am surprised when I make a comment I expect to be unpopular, and it ends up somewhat popular!

The problem you run into is that many people feel that a comment they disagree with is low quality. Encouraging flagging over downvotes would actually increase censorship: Instead of downvoting, users would flag a lot more comments, and they'd be more likely to be hidden by the site.

The only major complaint I have with the downvote system is the comment-graying. The design goal is to dissemphasize downvoted comments, but in practice it biases a reader toward downvote bandwagoning, anecdotally. (if comment scores were made public again I could quantitatively verify this, ahem)

IMO comment graying should only start after a comment hits -2, instead of graying after a single downvote.

I completely disagree. Downvotes and upvotes are the entire reason why I come here. They are not perfect but it's a relatively simple way to moderate content. I don't want to see every article submitted to this site or read inane comments. As a niche site there is still a good signal to noise ratio with the discussion here. Generally speaking the community does a good job of policing itself and I can't see how removing the downvote feature will improve anything.

I agree that downvotes are crude so instead of removing them you could improve them. How about when you downvote you have to choose a reason eg: 1. Comment is off-topic 2. Poor argument / source 3. Combatitive / abusive

Side note - there is no internet discourse more eye-rolling than whining about how you can't express an "unpopular" idea. Just say what you want to say - I swear you are significantly less edgy than you think.

Also, you're not allowed to downvote this comment. That would be suppressing my speech and such a chilling effect is disturbing.

Over, ugh, 35 years of participation in discussion-based online communities, voting was ultimately the death of several of them. Quality moderation—including via social feedback—was the single most important factor in their pre-voting success (and, to be fair, for several years post the change to a voting system). Basically, the community gets out what it allows to be put in.

I'm fine with the current system, and it seems to work quite well most of the time. I kinda feel like "works quite well most of the time" is about all I can hope for on most things. It usually buries "bad" (yes, that's a subjective word) comments here. It's not perfect, I've seen perfectly reasonable things get grayed out sometimes, but these things happen. It's not a perfect system, but it usually gets the job done.

That being said, I do think your criticisms are good, but I just don't think those are reasons to get rid of downvoting here on HN.

Fully agree. I would even suggest to have separate values for agree/disagree and high/low quality. Flagging might be justified in many cases but unfortunately can be misused (i.e. allows arbitrary suppression of valid opinions).

EDIT: flagging could e.g. increment a visible counter and serve as a trigger to the admin; assuming the admin is a neutral arbiter assessing the compliance of the post with HN and legal requirements he/she could remove the post or comment, and leave a rationale for his/her decision; that could prevent arbitrariness.

I lose points a lot & I don't mind that.

But I do think there are, often, some very biased negative idealogues who vote down interesting & valuable opinions, regularly, & mercilessly, because they don't jive with the image of the world as the downvoter wants to believe it.

I think it's very frustrating. And unfortunate. And I think that usually it's the ungenerous zero-sum view of the world people that tend to be mass downvoters. There are other generally unpopular or unsupportable opinions that get down voted too, which I think is more in the cards, more regular, & especially in the contested/hot threads up top. My main concern is not this, not people getting blown out of the water in hot spots, but a lot of interesting voices getting chilled & sent down.

My ask is: more data. Show upvoted & downvoted separately when one hovers over the net points of a post. I also like the opinion that downvotes ought include a reason, a cause: off topic, bad content, bad whatever, slashdot style.

Yes, absolutely. Or, at the very least, remove the graying-out of the comment text; it's childish and demeaning and serves no purpose other than to highlight what some people have considered to be "wrong." dang (and whomever else may moderate) already has the ability to collapse comments if the subject-matter is especially egregious.

Some people down-vote when they simply disagree with whatever is being conveyed. This behavior is not conducive to a thoughtful, substantive conversation.

Beyond signaling a post/comment is of low quality or off-topic, I do not see any use for the down-vote; the 'flag' option exists for this purpose. I also believe the bar for the flagging privilege be set higher.

  >Downvoting has the aggregate effect of suppressing speech...

Whatever else HN is, it isn't a platform for free speech. There is definitely an 'orthodoxy' of opinion on here, stepping outside of which is liable to lead to shadow-banning and post killing.

I don't care about the voting system. However, I would want the option (in the user profile) to ignore them for the purpose of sorting, and to always display everything in chronological order.

Several people are suggesting that the graying is removed. How else will you know that a comment has been unfairly downvoted and needs a corrective upvote?

Upvotes are available to many more people than downvotes, so when a comment is downvoted and stays downvoted it means one person disagreed with it enough to downvote it, but many people read it and didn't think it deserved an upvote.

I agree. A downvote has more chance to be done as a result of our disgust response. As I understand it, the disgust response preempts our reason center. Obviously, that does not lend itself to a better discussion. Reasonable and rational dissent to an idea seems like a better idea than a knee jerk response.

How about adding a comment when you downvote?

This should stop the knee jerk downvotes and otoh also tell the OP the reason why the post got downvotes.

If somebody makes a downvote with a comment like "sgsgsgsfwfwg" the OP can flag it and the downvoter gets his downvote privileges revoked on 10 flags or something.

Just an idea.

It would be interesting if there could be a comment requirement with downvotes.

Does HN have reddit equivalent of controversial? I always thought controversial "+" badge is an alternative validation system outside of points. Not validation in terms of karma/points but contribution. I guess HN equivalent would be highlighting dead comments brought back via vouch. Should even be default sort option for topics that gets suppressed due to inflammatory subject matter, or maybe have comment threads with most controversial index be pinned at top.

Can we at least not fade out downvoted comments?

Downvotes are feedback. If you are afraid of it, you will never find your voice.

I kinda agree with this

Absolutely agreed. Downvoting does not add to the discussion, it takes away, and the bar to dead seems ridiculously low.

Instead of a downvote, add more muting functionality, ways to personally shut off speech not welcomed, but not in a way that prevents others from seeing it.

Personally, I believe all opinions should behave the opportunity to be heard, no matter how crazy, and should not be suppressed because a handful of people don’t like it.