Re:Please Bring Back Our Downvotes: Society Desperately Need...
by astrange on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @03:42PM
(#27988756)
Reddit's comment quality is actually better than it used to be, though I don't understand what changed. It's true that the #1 comment on every post used to be wrong or a series of unfunny jokes, and then maybe #2 was good.
Currently their main problem (which is unsolvable) is just that everyone uses it and so there's new teenagers to ask trivial gender war questions on AskReddit every week.
Re:Please Bring Back Our Downvotes: Society Desperately Need...
by forbiddenvoid on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @12:21PM
(#27985620)
It doesn't hurt that new users also can't downvote by default, and that it takes nontrivial contributions to get that ability.
For me, what it always comes back to is this: A downvote is meant to indicate "this comment does not contribute to the conversation," but many website userbases misuse downvotes to say "I disagree." If upvotes/downvotes are proxies for agrees/disagrees, then the comment sections can get ugly.
I believe HN thrives despite the upvote/downvote system because this website is a little more mature than others.