Do you upvote? Why or why not?

I rarely upvote posts themselves because I forget (I'm trying to do it more), I do upvote comments that I really agree with, offer a really insightful or knowledgable take, or posts that open or change my perspective. I almost never downvote. The only comments I feel should be downvoted are ones containing blatant hate speech like racism. Anything else is tribalism and I would rather all voices be given a chance to speak.

If they're wrong then they won't accumulate upvotes. It's like comedy - if it's funny, people will laugh, if it's not, then they won't. This is why I'm not particularly a fan of the increasing unreadability of downvoted comments - it feels like silencing people. It also gives undue influence to the first readers of the piece and allows individuals or groups with agendas to target and downvote things they don't like with the aim of getting it taken out of the conversation early. I do unfortunately observe this behaviour on contentious topics more regularly than I would like.

If you don't agree with a comment, you should either just ignore it, leave a comment stating why you disagree or ask why the commentator has come to that conclusion. This is far more likely to have a positive impact than downvoting, which is only going to make someone feel attacked, alienated and misunderstood.

I upvote things that I think should be more visible, especially contrasting opinions in a sea of yes-men. I would downvote someone who adds nothing productive to the conversation, for example by arguing a point that has already been raised without responding to what's been said.

I upvote submissions that I think might lead to interesting discussion whether I agree with them or not and whether I like them or not.

I downvote comments that attack or degrade people ad-hominem and such or that derail the topic or try to bait people.

(I assume that you mean the comments, though the upvote/flag on a top-level item can be similar.)

I can upvote (or downvote) for content that I agree/disagree with as well as how much the comment does/doesn't contribute to the debate, as you suggest. Sometimes those are finely enough balanced for me not to do either!

I tend to reserve downvotes for things that are inflammatory or shallow or dishonest or similar.

After nearly a decade I still can't downvote (I think there's a minimum score -- 500? EDIT: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37918382 I upvote liberally, mostly comments that bring me new information, eloquently elucidate obscure truths or frequently misunderstood concepts, make me laugh, point me to good resources, etc. I admit that I often forget to upvote good posts, since I usually click through to the article before I know whether or not I think it deserves an upvote, or sometimes I get lost in the comments and forget.

I upvote topics that are interesting in my opinion.

I still cannot downvote... What means I am only allowed to have a positive attitude with other's comments.

P.D. What karma do you actually need to gain the right to downvote?

> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

Upvote thoughtful / substantive comments, regardless of personal opinion. Downvote unthoughtful / unsubstantive comments, regardless of personal opinion.

I don't downvote unless it's an obvious troll. I upvote if it's well written ANDOR it's a well-made point. If I get into a debate in the comments with a smart person, I upvote every reply they make to remind myself that they deserve respect.

I upvote what I consider to be good points. That is not always something I agree with. "Disagree but made me think" is about the highest praise possible on HN.

I downvote things that I think are factually wrong, or things that are opinions but are stated as fact and are (IMO) wrong. I also downvote hostility, aggression, name calling, flamebait/trolling, blatant politics, spam, bad faith arguments. I sometimes downvote arguing without actually listening to the parent's argument.

I upvote things that I learned from or gave me a new perspective on. Reading the comment was a net positive use of my time. This can include comments I disagree with.

Similarly, I downvote things that I don't perceive as a positive use of time for me or for anyone else. Spam, grossly incorrect information, deliberately inflammatory comments meant to elicit a certain reaction, etc.

If a comment was a waste of time for me personally, but I can see how someone else might benefit from seeing it, I'll do nothing.

I just did a Show HN[1] and received a star on the GitHub repo[2] but no upvote on the HN submission itself

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37917368

[2] https://github.com/hbcondo/last10k_liveview

Generally:

- Upvote posts and comments I'd like to see represented, are insightful, and/or make me think.

- Downvote: posts against HN guidelines (either in source material or the submission contents, e.g., editorialised title, duplicate submission), comments which don't add to the discussion.

I've been making a point of upvoting what I read as sincere substantive engagement even where that disagrees with me. One aspect of HN I find frustrating is that there's rarely much by way of substantive discussion, and HN's own systems often read that as a flamewar (e.g., a thread that's nested deeply and shifted far to the right). That's often the case but is not always the case.

With time I'm finding myself more favourably inclined to systems that have "flat" discussion threads. Google+ was one of these, and effectively each response was simply appended to the end of the thread. Conventions of mentioning an earlier reply and quoting a small bit of context emerged. The dyanmics and mechanics of posts differed from HN: there was always a directly-involved moderator (effectively), the post's own author. Whether or not that author would moderate, and how fairly they did so, of course, varied tremendously. People who were good at this, though, often had excellent discussions.

Threads were capped at 500 comments. Good discussion typically had probably on the order of 10--50 active participants tops (and often fewer). That was enough for a number of comments from each, and threads rarely hit the cap (though occasionally did). The end result read far more like a transcript of a real-life conversation than, say, HN or Reddit threads (or Usenet back in the day).

Again, HN tends not to produce such interactions, though they occur occasionally. Reddit is even worse for this --- it's where conversations go to die.

I upvote comments that make cogent arguments or provide useful information. I downvote comments that are trolling (feigning ignorance to make a point, promoting hate, etc) and whining about being downvoted.

I haven't been good about upvoting posts, but when I do it's because I find them interesting.

By the time I visit HN, all posts are already upvoted for me. Thanks to all the voters. So I hardly feel the need to. I don't know how posts with zero votes start off but much appreciation to whoever reads them and upvotes.

I never downvote and almost never upvote. Having spent time on 4chan and other imageboards, I have seen discussions work just fine without any ranking mechanism, and as such I have become skeptical of the usual upvote schemes.

When there are no ranks (or even usernames), you need to use your own thinking to evaluate the posts. Even if it requires more scrolling, it's worth it. If you are looking for the hot parts of the discussion, you can use the number of replies to a given post as a proxy — it could be considered a UI issue of HN that it's not shown very clearly here.

Up vote: was something interesting (not necessarily that I agree)

No vote: most things

Down vote: actively ignoring what someone is saying, "why doesn't this blog have a dark theme"

Flag: spam

Only place I try to keep to those ideals! I'm guilty of only upvoting/liking stuff I agree with fully on other sites, but really trying to use "was interesting enough to reread" as a metric for upvoting here.

I upvote good/insightful points people make and downvote trolls and obviously misinformed/willfully ignorant points people make or stuff that's completely off-topic.

Why do I do this? It's my little contribution to the community to push the garbage to the side and let the good stuff rise to the top and spur good discussion.

I upvote things I think are valuable; empathy, humor, thoughtful explanations. Just when I think about it. I also upvote comments that sparked a lot of good discussion for visibility.

I downvote things that are rude, mostly terse point scoring behavior (not addressing what was said but implying something about the poster).

I flag outright aggro stuff.

Usually other people have handled the downvoting.

I will check out the downvoted replies, and if there's no good reason for it to be downvoted I'll vote it up. And if something is really very informative and low on the list I'll vote it up.

I'll have to stop myself from voting up the jokes, though I'll never vote them down.

I upvote liberally; anything that makes me think "hmm, intereting", or that I feel contributes to the site, gets an upvote. If something seems like it could be personally relevant, I favorite it. I only donvote for egregious factual errors/blatant and obstinate misunderstandings.

I frequently try to upvote to encourage good discussion and good behavior. If someone's posting helpful links, or has a thoughtful anecdote, or says something directly responsive to a question, or asks a good question, I like for those to be recognized and so I try to do my part.

Yes but it is awful on mobile because I have to zoom in and always check if I did down vote by mistake.

I upvote all the useful, on-topic comments that add to the conversation that I see, so about once a day.

I downvote all the off-topic, hobby-horse-pushing, badly-informed, self-interested or -aggrandising, wrong, mean and repetitive comments, it's basically a full-time job.

The upvote / downvote button is really tiny on mobile. my thumb doesn't hit the mark often enough for me to often do it.

Maybe the color doesn't draw my eye enough.

it seems random when I really assess something I like.

Sometimes when I see good content that has a low vote count I upvote it.

I forget to upvote posts, but I upvote comments a lot more often. Sometimes I'll go to the bottom of a thread and just upvote every decent comment that appears to have been downvoted for no reason other than "I disagree with this".

I upvote comments that add information to the topic and it's coherent, and especially if its source is documented. I downvote comments that are mere opinion, not constructive, or are off topic to the point of irrelevance.

I upvote a lot. I also downvote and flag culture wars BS submissions and comments.

I upvote when an answer deserves to be higher. I don’t downvote good answers that should be listed lower, however.

I also upvote answers to my comments. Also when I disagree with them, as long as they’re not toxic.

I generally don’t downvote.

I upvote things that are interesting to me and hope they will be interesting for others. I rarely downvote. Maybe only rude comments? Not sure, but it happens rarely.

I do. As part of keeping track of what I found interesting/participated in. I rarely downvote though and I favorite stuff that I really want to keep.

I am a big upvoter. Especially for Launch HN posts.

Never upvote posts. I upvote comments, though my bar for upvoting is embarrassingly higher than my bar for dishing out downvotes.

I would say HN is very generous on upvotes (and downvotes too probably). I post mostly random thoughts, and I end up with points

I tend to upvote what I agree with but I think I manage to only downvote low effort / uncharitable takes / spam

I upvote post that I want more people to see.

I upvote things I agree with and downvote things I disagree with.

Just kidding. I only vote on comments, and pretty rarely.

I do.

I upvote comments I agree with.

I upvote comments I disagree with, but other people seem to agree with.

I downvote obnoxious or distateful comments.

It's curation and helping the site content. Participate in the site you're a part of.

I upvote less than once daily. I don't downvote because I make new accounts on occasion.

I upvote stories that are important to me; those that are just interesting I rarely upvote.

I would upvote if the button was more easily pressed on mobile!

Maybe there's guidelines, but I think the point of community moderation is to use it how you see fit. The big thing to keep in mind that if you want to downvote opinions just because you disagree with them, no one will know, so who cares?

I don't vote much in big threads, cause I'm not sure it's "fair" to lower ranked threads to only vote on the top threads. This is hardly a hard and fast rule for myself though, because sometimes the top thread is top for a reason and deserves a vote!

For upvoting, I vote based on if it was something I was going to say (no need to say it again), if it was interesting, if it was provocative but soundly sourced, or just all around well expressed.

What I really focus on when downvoting is posts made in bad faith. If someone is setting up a false dichotomy, strawman, hiding behind "just asking questions", or otherwise being disingenuous, I downvote. I'm here for a discussion, not to play those types of games...

I mostly upvote posts that make an interesting argument.

I upvote items that are of interest to me, or things I'd rather see at the top of the front page (compared to what is there already).

For comments, I'll upvote insight or prosocial behaviour (praise directed at a free software author's comment, say). Plus, anything by people who are clearly authoritative and making posts which contain valuable perspectives. Plus, anything people need to hear.

Downvotes I try to reserve for people who are rude, clueless, or obtuse. An example here might be the "but solar panels use fossil fuels for their production" types of comments where the obvious next question - "do they produce more energy than they take to make?" - is left unasked and unanswered by the poster. Disingenuous comments, in other words.

I usually upvote for these reasons:

1. I find this interesting

2. I agree with this

3. This is cool

4. I learned something new

5. Bookmarking purposes

I usually downvote for these reasons:

1. This is trolling

2. This is a terrible/dumb take

3. This is a really over the top political comment that really has nothing (or very little) to do with the subject

4. This is misinformation

Overall I upvote a lot more than I downvote and I do so many times a day.

sure! share the love (if it deserves love).

I upvote links and paywall bypasses. I upvote polite and logical behavior. I upvote funny jokes. I don't downvote anything.