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Two HN Announcements

(blog.ycombinator.com)
698 points tilt | 5 comments | 29 Sep 15 18:40 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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bane ◴[29 Sep 15 19:18 UTC] No.10298787[source]▶
I can't help but like the spirit of the vouch system, and I'm sure quite a bit of thought went into it. But at the same time I'm wondering if the site really needs two different versions of up-vote/down-vote with different different semantics.

Still, I get it, it's a kind of super-vote, reserved for people with a little karma (i.e. some "skin in the game"). Out of curiosity, how'd you guys arrive at 30 for cutoff?

replies(1): >>10298909 #
dang ◴[29 Sep 15 19:31 UTC] No.10298909[source]▶
30 is the flag threshold and has been for years. I don't know how pg picked it. It works well, though, and we like that it isn't a high bar.

You'd be surprised at how different votes and flags are in effect. The upvoting system is a lot more broken than the flagging system is. People tend to upvote as a reflexive "me like" instead of a reflective "this is interesting". (That's not a criticism—it's simply the chemical reaction of the voting mechanism and human nature.) Flagging is much more reflective in practice. You can think of vouches as an experiment in seeing whether up-flagging can contribute as much value to HN as down-flagging has.

replies(3): >>10299604 #>>10300237 #>>10300299 #
1. Steko ◴[29 Sep 15 22:25 UTC] No.10300237[source]▶
The main problem is that upvotes and downvotes are devalued because they are essentially unlimited. What if karma behaved more as a currency and the costs increased as you used it repeatedly in the same comment thread. First one is free, then it costs you 1, then 5, etc.
replies(1): >>10300516 #
2. dang ◴[29 Sep 15 23:15 UTC] No.10300516[source]▶
Variations of this have been suggested many times. I'd be curious to try it someday if we could figure out a way to do it that didn't put anything important at risk.
replies(1): >>10300706 #
3. AnimalMuppet ◴[29 Sep 15 23:50 UTC] No.10300706[source]▶
It would make me less likely to upvote more than one comment per thread. That seems like a downside - a good thread can have several comments worthy of upvotes.
replies(1): >>10301073 #
4. takee ◴[30 Sep 15 01:13 UTC] No.10301073{3}[source]▶
A slightly tangential question that I have tried looking for an answer in the FAQs but couldn't: what is the required karma to earn the downvote privilege? Couldn't find this documented anywhere. I apologize if I didn't look hard enough.
replies(1): >>10301182 #
5. jccc ◴[30 Sep 15 01:36 UTC] No.10301182{4}[source]▶
501:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7606199