Ask HN: Two sets of upvoting/downvoting buttons?

5 points by kinkdr 9 years ago | 9 comments

Do you think it would make sense if forums like hackernews/reddit/etc.. would have two sets of upvote/downvote buttons?

The first set would be used as a "contributes to discussion - vs - does not contribute/flame" indicator, while the second set would be used for "I agree/support this view - vs - I disagree/don't support it".

The usage of the voting at the moment seems a bit unsymmetrical, the up button is usually used to show support of the argument, while the down button is used, correctly the most times, to indicate a comment that is inflammatory/troll or doesn't add anything to the discussion.

wvenable 9 years ago |

I've thought this as well but you probably only need 3 buttons: agree, disagree, and inappropriate.

Basically pressing either agree or disagree is also saying that it contributes to the discussion. Clicking inappropriate is the same as downvoting as it is now. Finding the right terminology might be difficult.

I'd love to see this as an experiment to see how it changes the discussions here.

DanBC 9 years ago | |

Isn't this what HN has? Up, down, and flag?

wvenable 9 years ago | | |

No because "down" doesn't mean "disagree" -- down votes cause comments to sort lower and negative amounts will gray out the comment. "Flag" kills the comment if deemed by moderators as inappropriate.

In this proposal, "disagree" and "agree" are both the same as "up".

kahrkunne 9 years ago |

I don't think there's any point to having agree/disagree buttons. What should they do, push posts down that most people disagree with? Clearly that would be a mistake and a sure way to create an echo chamber.

clusmore 9 years ago | |

It's funny that I agree with you and my first instinct was to upvote (and I did). But I can justify that as being because "it's an interesting point that I think more people should read."

I think people will always want to be able to express whether they agree/disagree with things, and if you provide good/bad content buttons but not agree/disagree, a lot of people would just abuse the good/bad content buttons which would largely defeat their purpose. I agree that the ratio of agree/disagree should have no bearing on the order that threads are displayed. So perhaps the purpose of agree/disagree could just be to give users a way to express their opinions without compromising the good/bad voting, and maybe even allow users to find old content they agree/disagreed with.

kinkdr 9 years ago | |

Isn't this how most people use the "upvote" button already anyway?

skylark 9 years ago |

I'd argue that the UX for up/downvoting is already correct. Vote up if you agree, down if you disagree. It's intuitive and how most people use those buttons.

You can attack this problem from a different angle: Factor the number of reports/flags into the karma calculation and unweight downvoting itself. The report button on Reddit is essentially a "this content is inappropriate" button - why not use it as a part of the scoring system?

relearn 9 years ago | |

It is important that in a system where you have an interaction between groups with differing opinions that neither side has more influence over the rating (score?,metric?) in question. If I agree with a post I can perform the single action of upvoting; however, if I disagree I can downvote _and_ report. This leaves more power in the hands of those who disagree, and would almost certainly be abused.

grzm 9 years ago |

Five buttons total:

- two sets of buttons: agree/disagree & good/bad argument

- one flag button for inappropriate/abuse

Edit to add: karma calculations left as an exercise for the reader ;)