Comment by godelski
2 days ago
Also note that votes don't just mean agree/disagree. I frequently upvote comments I disagree with and downvote comments I agree with. The votes place the comments in the discussion ranking so plenty of people vote this way.
One example of this is I might like a conversation that's responding to a comment I don't like. But it's a common misunderstanding so I want the conversation to be boosted. Therefore I upvote the comment I disagree with because it's parent to the comments I want to be more visible.
I don't think I'm the only one that does this on HN. And I think doing this can help reduce the repeated comments. In the above example an early common misconception might get downvoted, not seen by others, and then repeated by some, where it can then rise because it's seen by a different subset.
Anyways, I don't think people should vote strictly on agree/disagree
I also don’t think people should vote like that, the problem is there’s no way to enforce such a pattern[1]. Everyone benefits from voting as you describe, but that’s precisely where the prisoner’s dilemma comes into play. There’s also a size component to it. Small, tight knit communities tend to do well with voting, but as communities grow interactions become less personal, trust drops, and the incentive structure I described above becomes dominant. Voting essentially allows a community to establish its own Overton window distinct from what the official rules create, but that can be changed and constricted until a bubble is established[2]. I’ve seen it happen with countless communities across social media. Despite good intentions I think voting systems are a net negative to fostering good discussions and debate.
[1] Maybe AI meta-moderation?
[2] I don’t mean that this is happening intentionally by bad actors, merely that on average large groups produce outcomes that are dictated by incentives.