[anthuswilliams]

One thing I wish was different about the way Reddit's algo worked is the way it treats downvotes. Basically, if I am average Joe redditor, there are two potential reasons for a downvote:

1) The post is something I personally disagree with.

2) The post was written by a moron (for various definitions of the word moron).

What I wish is that someone (smarter than myself) could come up with a way to reliably determine the motive behind a downvote. I know that's no simple task. But I actually want posts that are slightly more controversial to rank higher than posts which don't generate a lot of downvotes, simply because I'm more interested in reading something thought-provoking than checking out the latest batch of meme-gen.

Basically I want comment rankings to look like this:

a) Lots of downvotes, few upvotes == total asshole. Maybe racist, maybe a general troll, but I want this ranked at the rock bottom.

b) An equal number of upvotes vs. downvotes == flamebait. I'm not interested in the latest holy wars, so we call this the next lowest in rankings.

c) Lots of upvotes, few downvotes == uninteresting. Rank it lower.

d) The ratio upvotes/downvotes is greater than 1, but less than some finite number N. These are the stories I want to read.

I want a ranking system that works something like the above, albeit with more finesse (e.g. perhaps we swap the ranking position of b and c). I'm just not interested in the latest round of adorable kitten pictures, and on HN, too much emphasis on the sheer number of upvotes manifests as groupthink. Also, I want the downvotes that are received by slightly controversial stories/comments (again, slightly controversial as opposed to PC-vs-Mac style flamebait) to have a smaller effect on the poster's karma, so that people will feel free to express disagreement on sites like reddit and HN.

[dennisgorelik]

Seeking controversial postings makes sense.

But why do you downvote controversial stuff then? Why not give upvote for interesting postings and downvote for boring postings?

[anthuswilliams]

I, personally, don't downvote as a way to express disagreement. The average redditor does. I wish it was reasonable to expect that the entire reddit community uses downvotes only in a way I consider appropriate, but I don't think it is.

[dennisgorelik]

I think every voter should get their own list of sorted stories and comments. That list should form based on voter's upvotes and downvotes. Then readers would quickly stop seeing postings they are likely to downvote and see more postings that they are likely to upvote. Pretty soon people who express their interest in controversy - would get controversial stories on top of their list and people who express their interest in groupthink - would get lots of stories re-confirming their groupthink.