<story><title>The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)</title><url>https://stackoverflow.blog/2009/03/09/the-value-of-downvoting-or-how-hacker-news-gets-it-wrong/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>TheManInThePub</author><text>Frankly, I couldn&amp;#x27;t agree with this more.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve seen intelligent and insightful HN posts down voted simply because they went against the status-quo.   If this is allowed to go on, people will be afraid of making controversial (but intelligent) posts, and this place will become another reddit.</text></item><item><author>CDRdude</author><text>I think slashdot’s voting system was well equipped to avoid that problem, but they faded anyway. Maybe it was the redesign? I think many of their innovations in 1999 would go a long way to resolve political downvoting today—-new accounts were unable to vote on comments, you were unable to vote and comment in the same posts, metamoderation to ensure fairness, and up or downvotes having to fit categories like ‘insightful’ or ‘offtopic’.</text></item><item><author>benlivengood</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been through several forum deaths.  The cause is usually large growth from people with very different mindsets that downvote for essentially political reasons instead of encouraging good discourse.  This makes the best people leave in short order.&lt;p&gt;In a sense there&amp;#x27;s no way to structure a forum to avoid this.  Being outnumbered by people who don&amp;#x27;t value open communication is unpleasant with or without downvoting.  Forums that are highly specific to a small audience can last a long time. Popularity is the death-knell.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>karaterobot</author><text>Agreed, though personally I think that the complement is also true, and maybe more insidious: A lot of comments get upvoted because they state an uncontroversial, obvious position that everybody agrees with already.&lt;p&gt;This is insidious because it encourages people to be the first to say the least interesting thing in order to get rewarded with comment karma. Those comments bubble up to the top of the thread, where they&amp;#x27;re held aloft by more and more people who see their existing opinions restated.&lt;p&gt;Ultimately the reward structure encourages discussions where people are indulged, in the same way the punishment structure discourages people being challenged.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d say this effect is more pronounced on Reddit than HN, but you can see it here too.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not looking for &amp;quot;edgy&amp;quot; comments, I&amp;#x27;m just saying that it&amp;#x27;s more useful in the long run to upvote comments that provide new information or perspectives, or at least state a common sense position in a different, compelling way.</text></comment>
<story><title>The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)</title><url>https://stackoverflow.blog/2009/03/09/the-value-of-downvoting-or-how-hacker-news-gets-it-wrong/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>TheManInThePub</author><text>Frankly, I couldn&amp;#x27;t agree with this more.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve seen intelligent and insightful HN posts down voted simply because they went against the status-quo.   If this is allowed to go on, people will be afraid of making controversial (but intelligent) posts, and this place will become another reddit.</text></item><item><author>CDRdude</author><text>I think slashdot’s voting system was well equipped to avoid that problem, but they faded anyway. Maybe it was the redesign? I think many of their innovations in 1999 would go a long way to resolve political downvoting today—-new accounts were unable to vote on comments, you were unable to vote and comment in the same posts, metamoderation to ensure fairness, and up or downvotes having to fit categories like ‘insightful’ or ‘offtopic’.</text></item><item><author>benlivengood</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been through several forum deaths.  The cause is usually large growth from people with very different mindsets that downvote for essentially political reasons instead of encouraging good discourse.  This makes the best people leave in short order.&lt;p&gt;In a sense there&amp;#x27;s no way to structure a forum to avoid this.  Being outnumbered by people who don&amp;#x27;t value open communication is unpleasant with or without downvoting.  Forums that are highly specific to a small audience can last a long time. Popularity is the death-knell.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ascar</author><text>&amp;gt; I&amp;#x27;ve seen intelligent and insightful HN posts down voted simply because they went against the status-quo&lt;p&gt;The best thing to do here is for the community to step in and actively up-vote unfairly downvoted comments.</text></comment>