Designing Social Systems Without Causing Depression and War
Actually, I find it interesting how HN incentivizes good behavior with their karma system. Yes, HN discussions are most of the time not about social values, but nevertheless I found that it changed me a bit, so that I think more about how to write my comments.<p>So what I like about the system, is that (for experienced users) down voting is allowed and that a down voted comment is getting less attention (less karma damage, less reader damage) and that is getting faded out (so while reading comments you can quickly skip the bad comments).<p>That way, you don&#x27;t have to be afraid of writing a bad comment accidentally, because the system takes care of it, but when you write one you can see that that less people are reading it compared to a good one. I just wish down voting would require writing an answer. Nothing is more frustrating than a down voted comment when you do not know why people didn&#x27;t like it.<p>Over the past years, I found that other readers like comments which tell them something new and insightful about the topic. Links for further reading and as references for opinions are also appreciated.