[lwhi]

Meaning can be inferred from the down-voting. I think that was probably the meaning behind most of the negative votes.

I actually believe that it's okay to use voting to express whether you agree or disagree with a point. Where's the harm?

I think that the experience of reading HN is enhanced when there's contrast between popular and unpopular ideas. If a post is unpopular, it doesn't mean that I don't read it. If anything, I might pay more attention to it.

In some cases its lack of popularity might spark more debate; like it has in this case.

[kls]

I actually believe that it's okay to use voting to express whether you agree or disagree with a point. Where's the harm?

This is a bad point of view and is what is leading to the degradation of HN as a place for people who see the world through a different lens. We have already lost a lot of beautiful minds due to heard voting. Downvoating is for items that do not belong on HN, nothing more nothing less. If you downvote because you do not agree with an idea you are actively suppressing discussion, no matter how strongly you disagree. Many time from people more brilliant that ourselves.

[lwhi]

The voting mechanism is a tool. People choose to use tools in whichever way they see fit. A culture will develop and form according to the norms which are set around group usage.

On HN people I've found that many people use voting to signal whether they agree (or disagree) with something. If that wasn't the case, I'd see my karma rise - rather than rise, fall and fluctuate.

As far as I can tell, if something shouldn't be on HN, we have the ability to flag a post.

I can agree that a post shouldn't needless be hammered into negative space, just as a person's point of view shouldn't be needlessly trampled on in meat-space. But I think that down-voting in general has found a place.

We can say that it might be better to never down-vote - but many users have the ability, and it's a regular practice. Neglecting the fact is a little like ignoring the fact the emperor is wearing no clothes.

[kls]

As far as I can tell, if something shouldn't be on HN, we have the ability to flag a post.

You cannot flag comments downvoting is there to discourage, trolls and abuse.

We can say that it might be better to never down-vote - but many users have the ability, and it's a regular practice. Neglecting the fact is a little like ignoring the fact the emperor is wearing no clothes.

I am well aware of that and it has lead to a decline in the standard that HN used to be (while my account may not reflect it I have been around here for a long time, and witnessed the decline first hand). It has been complained about on HN ad nasium. No one is neglecting the fact that it happens, I am just stating that doing so makes HN a worse place the results are obvious and have already lead to some valuable people leaving.

[lwhi]

To flag a comment, click on 'link' and then 'flag'.

I think the decline is largely due to a rise in meta-discussion about HN and a rise in articles which are mainly designed to self-promote their authors.

I apologise for playing my part in the first ... ;P

[kls]

To flag a comment, click on 'link' and then 'flag'.

Thank you, you learn something new every day.

[scott_s]

The meta-purpose of karma is to promote good, civil discussions. I think that downvoting for disagreement runs counter to this purpose.

[wjy]

If voting was meant to indicate agreement or disagreement, then EVERYBODY would be able to downvote.

[burgerbrain]

For all intents and purposes, anyone can downvote. A few hous worth of groupthink comments will get you the ability.

Really this is all silly, if you upvote for agreement, why not the opposite?

[Sandman]

PG would disagree with you: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171.

For the record, I personally believe that you're right.

[tedunangst]

Downvoting discourages future posts. Then there won't be any posts that disagree with the prevailing sentiment.

[lwhi]

If I believe something, I'll post it even if it is going to prove unpopular. I'd hope most people would do the same.

I don't believe down-voting discourages discussion .. I'd argue it often provokes it.

[SomeCallMeTim]

Downvoting does more than that. It can hide a discussion, and regardless, it certainly buries it.

Not that I have been able to figure out the magic that gets you the ability to downvote, but I don't really feel the need.

[DeusExMachina]

There is a Karma threshold to be able to downvote or flag a comment/submission, so you simply don't see the option yet.

But indeed it sinks discussions, since the points are one the ways (not the only one) to sort comments.

[wtracy]

Apparently it has to do with how much karma you've accumulated. I magically got the ability to downvote some time last week, without any effort on my part.

[SomeCallMeTim]

You're just over 500 karma; I'm around 140 as I write this. So I guess I have a ways to go. :)

Not that I'm really worried about it one way or another, though.

[waqf]

The harm is that the voting system is designed as a step towards hiding (or at least not highlighting) posts which get downvoted. So downvoting prevents the experience which you yourself agree is desirable, that of seeing both popular and unpopular ideas represented.

That being said, I strongly believe that if a system is being misused, it is the system not the users which are at fault. In this case, my first suggestion (doubtless in need of refinement) is that there should be prominent agree/disagree buttons on every post to allow everyone to express their opinion, and then a separate "flag" link for people to mark spam or useless comments.

[Xurinos]

I think this is a promising line of thinking, the idea that there should be more than one kind of vote. There is confusion as to what the single up/down means, and this is not helped by the fact that the single karma value actually matters for things (the ability to downvote at all or the level of obscuration of the comment). It is certainly not helpful if everyone has a different opinion of what that arrow should mean.

From a UI perspective, there are tradeoffs. Multiple vote options means better sorting, more thorough meaning. It also means more confusion and more work.

Also, instead of single vote tallies, has there been social experimentation with preferential voting systems on comments? (This still has the problem of needing more than one flavor of preference.)

[waqf]

Preferential voting systems? You mean like people voting on whether you or lwhi gave the better answer to my comment?

[Xurinos]

Yeah. But maybe with multiple votes, we already effectively have this. The problem is that those votes are counted internally not as preference order but as total number of votes, adding to a user's general karma score.

[lwhi]

I don't believe the system does hide posts. It creates differentiation between low ranking and high ranking posts.

I rarely ignore the comments at the bottom of a page - in fact, sometimes the least interesting comments are those that are highest ranked.

What's the difference between having upvote / downvote buttons and agree / disagree buttons?

[waqf]

Well, that certainly elucidates your point of view: thank you.

But although the system never makes posts inaccessible (to do so would, I'm sure, elicit complaints of "censorship"), it does, if you're using a normally configured browser, grey out negative-voted comments so that they require deliberate effort to read (by -4, you need to highlight them with the mouse). It moves lower-voted posts down the page: even if you have time to read every post, which many people don't, you probably lose focus and pay less attention by the time you get down there. And it reduces the karma of people who make downvoted posts, which some people probably care about (e.g. because they lose/don't get the ability to downvote) and some people probably don't, but which is clearly intended as discouragement.

I think it's clear that the system is designed with the assumption that posts that get downvoted are posts that it intends to discourage. (And I think it's agreed for purposes of this discussion that spam and useless comments are deserving of discouragement in a way that comments one happens to disagree with are not.)

[lwhi]

I think the voting system probably provides some interesting metrics about users personality types; e.g. whether they have brutal/gentle personality traits etc.

I wonder if this kind of metric is used in ycombinator interviews?

[po]

In my view, it's ok to downvote something you something disagree with until it gets back down to 1 point. Then downvotes start to censor it and I think it harms discussion unless that comment is one of the things the grandparent commenter was talking about.

[illumin8]

I respectfully disagree. Notice how I'm replying instead of downvoting. Downvoting something you disagree with is just pure laziness. You're too lazy to reply so you just downvote, which contributes to burying the opinion of someone else.

You should focus on upvoting. Downvotes should be reserved for abusive, trolling, or spam comments.

[po]

I don't personally downvote things I disagree with (If it's presented well I sometimes upvote) but I think it's acceptable. If it wasn't supposed to be that way, it would be "flag" with no downvote option. I also personally think downvote should be removed from the UI completely but...

[lwhi]

That sounds really reasonable - I agree. Although, I think I'd probably bring a point that I personally find abhorrent into negative points.

[wtracy]

A downvote is a vote to remove a post from the discussion. (Or at least make it less visible.)

Downvoting posts you disagree with amounts to an attempt to suppress contrary opinion.

[lwhi]

If down-voted comments were unavailable to view, I'd definitely agree with you.