Comment by ghshephard | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ghshephard | Hacker News Reader

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Flags would be wonderful. There are many times where I've seen a wonderfully reasoned argument that I _completely_ disagree with (usually because of the premises of the argument). I am always conflicted - do I

A) Downvote the comment because the I think the conclusions are grossly wrong.

B) Upvote the comment because I'm so enamored of the elegance of the argument, it's contribution to the conversation, and how it made me think more carefully about my own argument.

C) Ignore it - and unjustly not provide my reasoned critique on what clearly took a great deal of effort by the author.

If I could only Flag it as "DISAGREE WITH CONCLUSION" and "ADDS TO CONVERSATION" then everything would be good.

The four flags that I think would be useful would be:

  FLUFF vs CONTRIBUTES
  AGREE vs DISAGREE
  SPAM
  INCIVIL

That way, I can now simultaneously rank an article as both contributing, as well as disagreeing with the conclusion.

An author may then write an unpopular, but carefully reasoned discourse, and still enjoy the positive feedback of his peers on his contribution, even if he is challenging their perspectives.

I worry that having an explicit "agree/disagree" axis would encourage a popularity contest mentality, so I was about to say that this was a terrible idea... but then it occurred to me that by having it there, it might siphon off the people that are using the upmod/downmod function as if it were agreement-based. So maybe it would be good after all.

Personally, I'd prefer if you'd write a comment and explain why the argument is totally wrong. (And preferably starting with praising what you approve of; that would give the right tone to any answers you get.)

Edit: On consideration, I should have followed my own advice and started this with: "A well reasoned, well written and interesting argument. But why aren't you adding the alternative of ANSWERING the argument instead of just moderating?!"

Personally, I'd prefer if you'd write a comment and explain why the argument is totally wrong.

I sometimes invite people to write such comments if they disagree with me. Often, when a comment makes a factual assertion for which I know of no evidence, I will reply to ask for the evidence. I will say things such as "Citations, please?" or "What are some examples of this?" or in some other way ask for the participant to back up the statement to which I reply.

But there are cases when a comment is totally wrong, and not a good contribution to the thread besides (which has always been a generally supported basis for downvoting), and it's just too much bother to post a countering reply or to ask follow-up questions. In such cases, I don't feel embarrassed at all in downvoting the wrong comment. The site founder pg, who announced news of changes he is considering in flagging options on HN in this thread, wrote 681 days ago,

I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

Voting and flagging options today are still much as they were then, and so for the moment I don't think it's a bad idea to downvote for disagreement, particularly if a comment has other undesirable characteristics. I will happily adapt to a new system if the site management implements a new system. And I invite participants who disagree with this reply of mine to write a comment and explain why my argument is totally wrong, if that is not too much trouble to you.

Perhaps it's okay to use the up/down arrows to express agreement/disagreement, but then the ranking of comments can only be seen as an indicator of popular comments, not necessarily thoughtful, quality ones.

That's the inherent issue here. It's that the arrows used to represent quality in theory are actually used in practice to indicate agreement. And then with the down voting, you effectively have a system of negative reinforcement because your comments are being downvoted because you're a dissenter, but interpreted as a sign of bad quality and discouraged to speak further. It's interpreted as a sign of bad quality because all the signs say so. You get grayed out if it's too negative and your comment gets pushed to the bottom. Perhaps you'll become alienated and leave the community, making the HN community slightly more homogenous.

I agree with you in that it's a good idea to allow people to indicate their agreement and disagreement, but to have it clearly defined as an indicator of popularity.

I think that it also seems to "taint" an entire thread the same as "leper unclean!". Especially when I see an entire thread of negative scores, I know that somebody has a chip on their shoulder for whoever steps in that turf they've decided to police. Participating in that thread is the same as a guaranteed downmod.

Fair Point with regards to answering the argument, but, with tens of articles a day, and hundreds of comments per article, sometimes all you can afford to do is take 5 seconds to flag your feedback. Also note that flagging/ranking an article also has an impact on how many people see the article, as it rises to the top.

There is also the (strong) possibility that I really have nothing to add to the conversation other than a DH3 "Disagree" - which perhaps suggests that I have no right to be moderating that particular comment in the first place.

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