People clamor for a dislike button on Facebook because it is an emotion they would like to express with a button. Whether it would lead to better comment threads is a completely different matter, and if Reddit is any indication it does not protect against hivemind, and in here as well it occurs frequently that comments are downvoted merely for containing arguments that people happen to disagree with.
I think with FB, people don't necessarily want a button that's just a counter to the "like" button. They want a "dislike" button, but on its own axis. So n-likes and m-dislikes don't add up to n - m = score but n + m = score.
In other words, when somebody posts that their dog just passed away or whatever, I want to hit "dislike", not to pull down the like score but as a separate emotional indicator.
Exactly. When some one announces that they have cancer, the last thing you want to do is click "like". Slashdot has several options, not just "like" and "dislike".
There's already an infinity of emotions which you can express with the comment box. I don't think another flavor without a different mechanism adds anything to the dynamics of commenting, which is what this article is discussing.
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People clamor for a dislike button on Facebook because it is an emotion they would like to express with a button. Whether it would lead to better comment threads is a completely different matter, and if Reddit is any indication it does not protect against hivemind, and in here as well it occurs frequently that comments are downvoted merely for containing arguments that people happen to disagree with.
I think with FB, people don't necessarily want a button that's just a counter to the "like" button. They want a "dislike" button, but on its own axis. So n-likes and m-dislikes don't add up to n - m = score but n + m = score.
In other words, when somebody posts that their dog just passed away or whatever, I want to hit "dislike", not to pull down the like score but as a separate emotional indicator.
Exactly. When some one announces that they have cancer, the last thing you want to do is click "like". Slashdot has several options, not just "like" and "dislike".
There's already an infinity of emotions which you can express with the comment box. I don't think another flavor without a different mechanism adds anything to the dynamics of commenting, which is what this article is discussing.