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Hacker News Guidelines

(news.ycombinator.com)
446 points tonmoy | 1 comments | 24 Aug 23 16:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.212s | source
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yjftsjthsd-h ◴[24 Aug 23 17:09 UTC] No.37251581[source]▶
The one thing I wish was added - either in the guidelines or as a change to the actual web UI - was replying to a comment that you're downvoting; it's frustrating both to have one's own comments downvoted without explanation, and to come across a comment that's grey without obvious reason (Was it factually incorrect? Endorsing an unpopular idea? It's not always obvious).

(I'm not saying HN should do exactly the same thing, but one example is Slashdot's system where a comment can get downvoted in a way that tags it specifically as trolling/offtopic/whatever - https://slashdot.org/faq/mod-metamod.shtml seems to describe it alright)

replies(9): >>37251672 #>>37251684 #>>37251692 #>>37252205 #>>37252423 #>>37252679 #>>37254129 #>>37254592 #>>37254827 #
1. lliamander ◴[24 Aug 23 21:33 UTC] No.37254827[source]▶
That's interesting: I don't think I've ever been unsure of why people downvoted anything I've said.

I don't think we should make it any more complicated. You might benefit (on the margin) from some feedback, but that makes the conversation more noisy for everyone.

I can say that personally, if I downvote something without also replying to it, it's either because I don't have time to write a helpful response, or because I know my own contribution would make things worse.