[unclebucknasty]

I believe downvoting is a far bigger problem.

The term "undeserved downvote" can't even exist, as the guidelines state that downvoting for mere disagreement is acceptable. But, what is that if not censorship and promoting groupthink?

If one disagrees, then why not encourage them to engage and explain vs submarining the comment with which they disagree? And, if content is unacceptable for some other reason, then flagging is still available.

[minerjoe]

"If your taking flak, your over the target."

I'm new here and just getting the feel. I definitely immediatly turned on viewing of dead comments. How else to get an understanding of the dynamics of this place?

I've been downvoted for comments that I feel were honest and accurate of the way I think and feel, but are definitely outside the HN overton window. I find this a valuable signal, and potentially what I can bring to HN.

I've also been downvoted for comments that I feel were a bit too pointed or flame bate style. That is a valuable signal also.

So I'm trying to maximize the number of the first type of downvote while minimizing the second. Score goes up and down, someday I'll get that pony.

I use a modified version of the links browser on the linux framebuffer, which works very nicely for HN, and incidentally does not allow for text color changes so I never see anything grayed out. No Javascript, so no need to vote.

[unclebucknasty]

>Score goes up and down, someday I'll get that pony.

After some time, and upon realizing that the downvotimg scheme here encourages groupthink, I decided that as long as I'm offering my honest ideas in good faith, then it's probably a good indicator if my karma stays roughly where it is. Let some agree and others disagree. In fact, maybe a slight decrease over time is preferable. This means people are at least challenged and encouraged to consider their position.

Frankly, if this were a community wherein disagreement never occured, then it would be extraordinarily boring: just a bunch of people sitting around head-nodding and upvoting each other. You need a variety of opinions to keep things stimulating.

So, I find it interesting that the very thing that keeps a community engaging is actively discouraged.

And, that the word "hacker" appears in the community's name is whatever comes after ironic.

[Dylan16807]

It's really easy to get upvotes, so if someone is posting in an honest and unbiased way I'd expect an upward trend, regardless of whether some challenging posts get downvoted. If someone's total is stable or dropping over time, I bet it's significantly more likely to be caused by bad behavior.

[reificator]

> No Javascript, so no need to vote.

I just double checked, voting works regardless of whether Javascript is enabled. Vote away.

[minerjoe]

Ahhh! I see. Nope for me. I also have no CSS and HN is using a div with a style. Why not just use a small image?

How can I alert the big wigs that they have an accessibility issue, as I assume anyone visiting with a text browser also has the same issue?

[reificator]

That makes sense.

I'd say either talk to dang about it or use the support link in the footer: [e-mail]

[twblalock]

People will downvote for disagreement whether or not the guidelines say it is ok. The guidelines are simply recognizing reality.

[unclebucknasty]

There's an easy fix for that: abolish downvotes.

[asjw]

That's actually a great idea! I would also abolish votes in general and only sort comments chronologically. users could vote and see the posts/comments ordered by their votes that would not be public

The "first" kind of comments are easy to detect, so I think they wouldn't be a big problem

The chances that a post written later in the game will become one of the most voted because it's really a good comment are close to none anyway

Another interesting feature would be highlight and prioritize content written by users you follow, based on some simple rule like how many votes you gave them before or how many interactions you already had in the past

But downvotes are a prize and a status, you have to reach a certain amount of karma points to be able to downvote something so I guess unfortunately they are here to stay

[GreedCtrl]

After hearing about pol.is[0] on HN, I've wondered about a system that allows or even encourages downvotes (with all vote counts hidden), but doesn't penalize content for being downvoted. Then downvoting to disagree becomes okay.

With this kind of system, you could even boost downvoted comments as long as they also receive upvotes, encouraging more diverse discourse. If we want an online space that doesn't become an echo chamber, we need to make it okay to respectfully disagree.

[0]: https://pol.is/home - pol.is uses votes to find common ground between divisive groups

[unclebucknasty]

Interesting idea. But, then, I think why not abolish downvotes and just encourage people to reply? Then, you could sort by engagement (i.e. replies and upvotes). The replies could stand in for implied divergence, as there's usually not much reason to continue a long (especially deeper) thread to simply agree.

An exception to that assumption might be if people have unique additional insights that could enrichen a topic, so they're commenting a lot while not necessarily disagreeing. But, such enrichment has notable value in its own right, so is probably worth surfacing as well. Engagement should breed engagement.

>If we want an online space that doesn't become an echo chamber, we need to make it okay to respectfully disagree.

And, that's what it all boils down to. So, the central point is to encourage people to engage and reply with their respectful disagreement vs issue downvotes into a blackbox. The only way to get diverse discourse is to encourage actual discourse. Downvotes are an explicit discouragement of it.

[encom]

>I would also abolish votes in general and only sort comments chronologically.

Congratulations, you invented Usenet. :)

Back in the day we didn't have voting, we had kill filters. If you didn't like another user, you'd have your reader filter out their messages. There were far fewer kids on my lawn in those days as well.

[asjw]

Back in the days I was there :)

In late 80s I was actively involved in some of the BBS of my city, that also gave access to Usenet, engaging mainly in cyberpunk, science fiction and C programming

Eternal September is still going on