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Hacker News Guidelines

(news.ycombinator.com)
446 points tonmoy | 4 comments | 24 Aug 23 16:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.022s | source
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Pannoniae ◴[24 Aug 23 17:30 UTC] No.37251926[source]▶
There's really one thing missing from the guidelines IMO - "don't downvote for disagreement, downvote for offtopic/flamebait/inappropriate comment".

Well, this should be obvious, but it sadly isn't...

replies(8): >>37251993 #>>37251994 #>>37252080 #>>37252462 #>>37252692 #>>37253548 #>>37255011 #>>37255520 #
steveklabnik ◴[24 Aug 23 17:39 UTC] No.37252080[source]▶
Historically, it has been explicitly okay to downvote for disagreement https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171
replies(2): >>37252368 #>>37255745 #
Pannoniae ◴[24 Aug 23 17:58 UTC] No.37252368[source]▶
I know, I just think it's not a good idea at all.
replies(1): >>37253585 #
tptacek ◴[24 Aug 23 19:37 UTC] No.37253585[source]▶
It depends on what you're optimizing for: the feelings of individual commenters, or the overall quality of the thread.
replies(2): >>37253843 #>>37262348 #
1. Pannoniae ◴[24 Aug 23 20:02 UTC] No.37253843[source]▶
I was thinking about the perspective of the whole site's quality globally.
replies(1): >>37253973 #
2. tptacek ◴[24 Aug 23 20:14 UTC] No.37253973[source]▶
Then it's much less clear why the alternate policy would be better.
replies(1): >>37254232 #
3. Pannoniae ◴[24 Aug 23 20:38 UTC] No.37254232[source]▶
I've touched on this in another thread under this comment - basically, I think that it doesn't help with the "optimise for curiosity" aspect of the site. Downvoting comments solely based on disagreeing discourages people from posting insightful yet unpopular comments, which is a net negative for curiosity here.
replies(1): >>37254624 #
4. tptacek ◴[24 Aug 23 21:13 UTC] No.37254624{3}[source]▶
I understand what you're saying now. That's an indirect and tentative benefit, which needs to be stacked up against the immediate and obvious detriment of threads being littered with rote, obvious disagreements. Most especially important to be aware of: even good comments are routinely downvoted! But those downvotes are almost always rapidly swamped by upvotes. In the system you're implying, we'd be reading rote meta commentary for all those fluctuations.

I think the system we have now works well for the thing it's designed to improve.