The number causes groupthink. Higher numbers maker people more likely to upvote and the inverse for lower numbers. I like the "show the amount of each" feature here and think it alleviates some of the issues, but I still think up/downvotes are easily rigged and designed to give dopamine hits rather than be representative of the validity of ideas.
TBH now that I can see when someone downvotes me, which is still pretty rare here but used to be frequent on Reddit before they hid comment scores, it makes me introspective and self-critical, I think that part is good. We should know in real-time when someone doesn't like what you said. Negative feedback is one of the things I like most about the internet in general, I'm used to writing in newspapers where your critics have to go through a snowstorm of filters before you hear what they have to say. And sometimes it's just easiest for someone to tell you "no" without leaving a message. Of course I am curious what they object to but nobody's got time for every dumb thing someone says online. Maybe if we had other ways to downvote, like "this is incorrect," "this is something I disagree with," "this is going to get somebody killed," that sort of thing. Emojis instead of votes.
I am pretty sure that the people who downvote me on Reddit or elsewhere are the people I would have the most interesting and illuminating discussions with but we rarely ever get to that point, and that's 100% down to the voting system. It didn't used to be like this on the old message boards in the 90s and early 00s.
Honestly, it was mostly flame wars and 1000 post threads of two people just fucking savaging each other. I am not suffering from some nostalgia where I'm reminiscing about the good old days of online boards. They were just as shit as online discourse is now. But you didn't have this universal expectation that everyone is supposed to have good manners to each other. The mods in those days were Nazis but they'd only step in when the flame war was about to turn into an actual fistfight IRL, or when it just got too annoying for them to handle. There's a space in-between a good old-fashioned throwdown fight and people just being shitheads online that's gone missing in the last ten years or so.
I'll have a go at this one. The nested comment system combined with the voting algorithm reinforces the lowest common denominator of conversation, whatever that ought to be called. This means you get improvements over the old vBulletin system of timestamped hierarchy, but there's only so good the conversations can tend to get. Basically, when someone makes a good post, it's almost an accident. When there are enough users, the voting system will, well, flatten the curve. With 100-200 people who share common interests it works fine, but past that it degenerates into the same useless noise you'd find on television or something similar.
There seems to be a critical threshold between quality and participation, after which someone needs to step in and direct the show, so to speak. This is why all subs get good as they are picking up steam and then get worse once the rest of the site finds them. We saw this in CTH after the sub hit around ~50k subscribers.
Well I really like how the top comment in a thread doesn't stay that way. On Reddit there's a problem where getting to a thread first puts it front and center. That isn't happening here except in very low-participation threads. I still have my old Reddit habits from using this site, like checking my profile page to respond to reply alerts, and I've been delighted to see that new posts in an old thread rise to the top. So the new sorting algorithm seems to help. Whoever's idea that was, they have my kudos.
Okay so CCP shill here, but I quite like the system in r/sino.
Most, if not all, of the threads have comments with a hidden score. Only the truly terrible/derivative/bait are hidden away, but you can still click on it to see the comment, as well as the many replies below.
I feel like that helps reduce bias when I evaluate comments, because I'm considering the comment's content by itself, and ignore the 'popularity' of the comment. It also helps you critically appraise arguments/discussions, as you consider what the comments are actually arguing for instead who has the highest score.
To add to this, I think you have to ask why it's important that others can see the upvotes/downvotes of a post? Is the location of the post not enough?
As much as I want to think of myself as a critical thinker if I see someone with a heavily downvoted post I will think it's bad before I read it and vice versa for a heavily upvoted post.
Maybe it's too late for here, but I honestly think the voting system is toxic to productive dialogue and to funey joeks
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I think it turns discussions into a game a little too much. People get addicted to the points and get mad when they're not winning.
It's useful for sorting the boring comments though, so idk what they best solution is.
The number causes groupthink. Higher numbers maker people more likely to upvote and the inverse for lower numbers. I like the "show the amount of each" feature here and think it alleviates some of the issues, but I still think up/downvotes are easily rigged and designed to give dopamine hits rather than be representative of the validity of ideas.
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TBH now that I can see when someone downvotes me, which is still pretty rare here but used to be frequent on Reddit before they hid comment scores, it makes me introspective and self-critical, I think that part is good. We should know in real-time when someone doesn't like what you said. Negative feedback is one of the things I like most about the internet in general, I'm used to writing in newspapers where your critics have to go through a snowstorm of filters before you hear what they have to say. And sometimes it's just easiest for someone to tell you "no" without leaving a message. Of course I am curious what they object to but nobody's got time for every dumb thing someone says online. Maybe if we had other ways to downvote, like "this is incorrect," "this is something I disagree with," "this is going to get somebody killed," that sort of thing. Emojis instead of votes.
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I am pretty sure that the people who downvote me on Reddit or elsewhere are the people I would have the most interesting and illuminating discussions with but we rarely ever get to that point, and that's 100% down to the voting system. It didn't used to be like this on the old message boards in the 90s and early 00s.
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Honestly, it was mostly flame wars and 1000 post threads of two people just fucking savaging each other. I am not suffering from some nostalgia where I'm reminiscing about the good old days of online boards. They were just as shit as online discourse is now. But you didn't have this universal expectation that everyone is supposed to have good manners to each other. The mods in those days were Nazis but they'd only step in when the flame war was about to turn into an actual fistfight IRL, or when it just got too annoying for them to handle. There's a space in-between a good old-fashioned throwdown fight and people just being shitheads online that's gone missing in the last ten years or so.
I just wish more people would comment with why they disagree rather than only downvoting.
Maybe my comments just tend to be too long...
It's because they know you're a lib
oh shit i've been found out! :screm-a:
I'll have a go at this one. The nested comment system combined with the voting algorithm reinforces the lowest common denominator of conversation, whatever that ought to be called. This means you get improvements over the old vBulletin system of timestamped hierarchy, but there's only so good the conversations can tend to get. Basically, when someone makes a good post, it's almost an accident. When there are enough users, the voting system will, well, flatten the curve. With 100-200 people who share common interests it works fine, but past that it degenerates into the same useless noise you'd find on television or something similar.
There seems to be a critical threshold between quality and participation, after which someone needs to step in and direct the show, so to speak. This is why all subs get good as they are picking up steam and then get worse once the rest of the site finds them. We saw this in CTH after the sub hit around ~50k subscribers.
deleted by creator
Well I really like how the top comment in a thread doesn't stay that way. On Reddit there's a problem where getting to a thread first puts it front and center. That isn't happening here except in very low-participation threads. I still have my old Reddit habits from using this site, like checking my profile page to respond to reply alerts, and I've been delighted to see that new posts in an old thread rise to the top. So the new sorting algorithm seems to help. Whoever's idea that was, they have my kudos.
Okay so CCP shill here, but I quite like the system in r/sino.
Most, if not all, of the threads have comments with a hidden score. Only the truly terrible/derivative/bait are hidden away, but you can still click on it to see the comment, as well as the many replies below. I feel like that helps reduce bias when I evaluate comments, because I'm considering the comment's content by itself, and ignore the 'popularity' of the comment. It also helps you critically appraise arguments/discussions, as you consider what the comments are actually arguing for instead who has the highest score.
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Sure thing, here' s one: https://old.reddit.com/r/Sino/comments/if3s7b/huaweis_future/
So far there are no hidden comments in this thread
To add to this, I think you have to ask why it's important that others can see the upvotes/downvotes of a post? Is the location of the post not enough?
As much as I want to think of myself as a critical thinker if I see someone with a heavily downvoted post I will think it's bad before I read it and vice versa for a heavily upvoted post.