| Upvoting GOOD posts and comments should gain karma--that contributes to the community. Why not emphasize the positive, and discuss what "quality" of submissions and comments means? I like to ask metaquestions that emphasize the positive from time to time, usually just after someone has complained about how HN is going to the dogs. Here are some examples, which I also have linked in my user profile: Ask HN: How Can I Make Better Submissions to HN? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=419539 Ask HN: What Kinds of Comments Should Be Upvoted? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1065084 Ask HN: How Can We Help Make HN a Better Online Community? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3174656 Ask HN: What do you like about the Hacker News community? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4399678 I'm seriously interested in anyone's response about what the difference is between high-quality posts and comments and lower-quality posts and comments. If we can reach consensus on that, we'll all know how to use whatever voting and flagging powers we each have. |