Ask HN: Would HN be better if downvoting required justification?
5 martin-t 13 6/29/2025, 12:50:43 AM
Long time lurker, I always enjoyed the technical discussions here but lately I feel the need to comment more.
Usually, the experience is positive but there are instances where the discussion seems to settle, I have a few points on some comments, then come back a few hours or a day later and my comments are downvoted into negative numbers without any new replies.
1) This doesn't feel like organic traffic. Normal votes (both up and down) come in steadily, the downvotes come in all at once, sometimes they appear even after just an hour or two.
2) I feel like they devalue discussions into a popularity contest. If you disagree with me, that's fine but you should be able to articulate the disagreement. If people just disagree and feel the need to let me know, they should have to process what I wrote in their brain sufficiently to form a coherent reason.
The asymmetry bothers me too. But then upvoting seems to imply both subjective agreement and objective correctness as well as endorsement to make it more visible. I would like to see those separated too, lesswrong is trying something like this but whenever I read the descriptions, I always feel like both buttons do the same thing so I think it's a good idea implemented badly.
Downvoting can mean any number of things too, just making people separate subjective from objective could have interesting dynamics, especially if claiming something is objectively false was visible to others to disincentivize using it wrongly.
1) Good content, you like it, you upvote it.
2) Bad content, harmful, misleading, downvote it.
3) Good or ok content, you dont like it, you do NOT downvote it.
The 3th point is most importand. You have right do disagree with someone as someone has right to express his opinion. As long as its not harmful or abusive, you do NOT touch it.
You also can't even see who downvoted, even on your comments. Somebody would probably try to justify it by saying it's to prevent revenge downvotes but upon second thought, that just exposes several bigger issues:
- it leaves the commenter with no way to fight back against the downvoter who can downvote as much as he wants, even every post by the same person - each downvote has the same value, regardless how many you make
I am certain (this is not a figure of speech) an algoritmic solution is difficult but people in small groups have evolved rather sophisticated mechanisms for detecting conflict, malice and deception, I'd like to see approaches that try to scale them up.
The issue here is caring about points. Just enjoy the site, actually take in the content and ideas here, and you will be so much better served than caring about points.
The most interesting/thought provoking comments are the prize for you, not the number by your handle
It also allows self-deletion and post-deletion, no time limit.
So, while there is a visible change log, there is none for deletion, and one can take the context away from a troll post-facto.
No downvotes, only flagging for cause (there's an itemized list ) and jury. So, the jury knows why.
Obscurity is the "penalty" in most cases for lack of interest. Flame wars just refresh the most recently replied date.
Like HN, it's well moderated, so it's a friendly and non-toxic place. I participate in no others, for that very reason.
HN pussy foots enough. That pussy footing is what causes pent-up voting - its trend followers and "i agree/disagree with this"ers not having the gall to cast first vote.
Justifying this will make it even worse, as a wall of text will be needed before anyone does anything. Then you'll get downvoted by the trend followers citing the wall of text dissenter rather than thinking still.
Could also be hidden until you have voted.
I also wonder if there are discussion sites where this is the case. It's certainly not any of the major ones.