Thanks for the pointer, interesting, especially the use of a large-horizontal layout (with mini-map!).
However, I don't see 'like' and 'wrong' as opposites, nor as particularly useful categories.
The vagueness of 'like' has done wonders for Facebook, where it may be the right choice, but in more purposeful discussions, it conflates all sorts of different signals. Do you like it because it adds to the joint project of the conversation? Or just because you agree? Or because a statement contains flattering lies?
Similarly, 'wrong' obscures: wrong for mutually-uplifting progress in the conversation? Wrong on the facts? 'Wrong' also implies a negative judgment – an error that must be corrected – so there's still censure/sting.
In comparison, 'agree'/'disagree' (as an axis) makes clear that what is being applied is a more subjective, contingent evaluation. Mere agreement need not amplify (uprank) a comment, nor need mere disagreement squelch (downrank/fade) a comment.
A separate axis, for 'laudable'/'problematic', is how norms of behavior could be expressed – and these votes may affect placement/visibility. Ideally, the 'down' aspect of these ticks would be rarely used, because of the negative-spirals that punishment can cause. (It might even be the one kind of vote that requires extra gestures to cast.)
Not also that a 'disagree' and a 'laudable' should both be castable on the same contribution. (We could call that 'the Voltaire Vote': I disagree with what you say but defend your right (and manner) of saying it.)
Such contributions are, in my worldview, the most valuable. I can find endless validation of my existing biases/beliefs with preferred sources and carefully-crafted Google searches. Open discussion is for finding challenging new insights – things you might disagree with initially, or forever, but are still valuable.
The vagueness of 'like' [...] conflates all sorts of different signals. Do you like it because it adds to the joint project of the conversation? Or just because you agree? Or because a statement contains flattering lies?
Hmm, the purpose with 'like' might not be to clarify why someone liked it, but rather to show to people what's worth reading. If many people like something, it's more likely to be worth reading. In this sense, I think 'Like' makes sense.
I agree that 'Like' is ambiguous and could mean lots of different things. However, once you've read the comment, what the 'Like' means is probably fairly clear? (If it's a joke, useful information, or strong agreement.)
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You mentioned people clicking 'Wrong' as some kind of general negative judgment — I hope they won't do that. Only factual errors and disagreement, I'm hoping.
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The axis you mention agree/disagree + laudable/problematic — I'm thinking they might be too complicated? Wouldn't people need to read the FAQ to clearly understand how to use these four buttons? — However I do think that something like what you're describing could work at a site like Hacker News.
There's some forum software, Vanilla forums, that sometimes show Like/Agree/Disagree buttons. However, when I studied a few discussions, people essentially never clicked Agree/Disagree, they only used the Like button. -- However, I just found a discussion where people actually do use the Agree/Disagree buttons, see: http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/134718/what-is-it...
Perhaps that's little bit what you were looking for (?), only that they're using 'Awesome' instead of 'Laudable'/'Problematic'.
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It is possible to click 'Like' and 'Wrong' at the same time actually (a bit like the Voltaire Vote). — However 'Like' + 'Wrong' does sound a bit vague to me, I agree. It could be interesting to explore some possibility for people to clarify why they liked something — perhaps a dialog could appear, that was easy to dismiss, where you could click some button that clarified why you liked it or thought it was wrong.
If 'like' is supposed to mean 'worth reading', maybe it should really be labelled 'recommended'?
But also, if there's only one vaguely-negative (or vaguely-positive) button available, it'll be used for all similar feelings when the reader is only lazy enough for a 'tick' rather than a composed-comment. (Even with these problems, though, collecting such 'lazy' easy-single-gesture feedback seems a good thing, for many kinds of sites: driving engagement and community self-governance way way up.)
So I don't think you can confine 'wrong' to "factual errors and disagreement". And I still find it odd that you'd want mix to mix 'wrong' with 'disagree'. Saying "you're wrong!" in a conversation is a challenge - it may need to be backed up, or require a defense/fix (or else relative statuses suffer damage). Saying "we disagree" can instead be a friendly, "I hear and understand you, but we neither will nor have to agree today" - and both sides retain their relative status.
People also often choose to compete for the "most agreed" - but if there's no punishment (in de-ranking/fading/loss-of-status/implied-censure) when you lose, those competitions can be a lot more civil and productive: the mobthink/piling-on/"we-must-enforce-and-cast-out" impulses are kept on a shorter leash.
I doubt in most cases that a secondary prompt requiring explanation is a good idea, except if explicitly desired as a way to slow/discourage a certain option (the 'problematic' censure/flag), or as initial 'training wheels' for new users. You'd not want to add it as a complication to the positive-feedback ticks that (if all is going well) you want to multiply to boost mood and engagement.
And yes, the UI and explanation for a two-indepdendent-axis system is a major challenge, even moreso because people are now trained-up on other systems. Some hunches:
• while the axes would be in a virtual compass-rose – up:laudable, down:problematic, left:agree, right:disagree – the actual controls would have some distance from each other, and (if possible) from the leftmost position that Reddit/HN/etc has trained-in
• the agree/disagree (opinion) totals are always shown – not just net but total of each – but as a left-right sparkline-like graph, and with no effect on ranking/fading. This rewards people for those votes: they see the tally change, and thus know that they've been counted.
• the laudable/problematic (moderation) totals are never shown, but are somewhat inferrable by ranking/visibility. As with HN, site moderators might override default positioning to help set norms and cap campaigning that spills into the moderation-axis.
And of course, all of it is very subtle until you try to tick/hover over it – low distraction from flow of text – and much is probably hidden from new users, until they incrementally familiarize with site norms and features.
'Recommend' instead of 'Like' would probably work, yes. Hmm, people are used to 'Like' and it might sound a bit more friendly / less formal. — Also, 'Like' can be used as an 'I strongly agree' button (fewer buttons needed).
But perhaps 'Wrong' should be renamed to 'Disagree' (?). 'Disagree' might work also for factual errors. — If there were the buttons 'Like' and 'Disagree', I'm thinking this would be like the system you suggest, except that there was no 'Problematic' button, and that 'Agree' and 'Laudable' were merged into one single 'Like' button.
A sparkline graph would have been cool :-) I'm thinking it's hard to implement in comparison to how many people would understand it and find it really interesting though.
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One reason I like the idea with a 'Like' button is that it seems to work well: have a look at http://www.discourse.org — they have a Like button, and nothing else. I find it useful and interesting to know what other people like, even if I don't know if it's because the comment is high-quality or it's because people strongly agree (well, until I've read the comment). And instead of any 'Problematic' button, I think they want people to simply ignore, or possibly flag, low quality comments.
In addition to 'Like', I'm thinking it's good to have some way to inform people about bad/harmful advice. The downvotes work well at StackOverflow / StackExchange I think.
So that's roughly my motivation behind Like + Wrong/Disagree.
Comments
Thanks for the pointer, interesting, especially the use of a large-horizontal layout (with mini-map!).
However, I don't see 'like' and 'wrong' as opposites, nor as particularly useful categories.
The vagueness of 'like' has done wonders for Facebook, where it may be the right choice, but in more purposeful discussions, it conflates all sorts of different signals. Do you like it because it adds to the joint project of the conversation? Or just because you agree? Or because a statement contains flattering lies?
Similarly, 'wrong' obscures: wrong for mutually-uplifting progress in the conversation? Wrong on the facts? 'Wrong' also implies a negative judgment – an error that must be corrected – so there's still censure/sting.
In comparison, 'agree'/'disagree' (as an axis) makes clear that what is being applied is a more subjective, contingent evaluation. Mere agreement need not amplify (uprank) a comment, nor need mere disagreement squelch (downrank/fade) a comment.
A separate axis, for 'laudable'/'problematic', is how norms of behavior could be expressed – and these votes may affect placement/visibility. Ideally, the 'down' aspect of these ticks would be rarely used, because of the negative-spirals that punishment can cause. (It might even be the one kind of vote that requires extra gestures to cast.)
Not also that a 'disagree' and a 'laudable' should both be castable on the same contribution. (We could call that 'the Voltaire Vote': I disagree with what you say but defend your right (and manner) of saying it.)
Such contributions are, in my worldview, the most valuable. I can find endless validation of my existing biases/beliefs with preferred sources and carefully-crafted Google searches. Open discussion is for finding challenging new insights – things you might disagree with initially, or forever, but are still valuable.
Hmm, the purpose with 'like' might not be to clarify why someone liked it, but rather to show to people what's worth reading. If many people like something, it's more likely to be worth reading. In this sense, I think 'Like' makes sense.
I agree that 'Like' is ambiguous and could mean lots of different things. However, once you've read the comment, what the 'Like' means is probably fairly clear? (If it's a joke, useful information, or strong agreement.)
---
You mentioned people clicking 'Wrong' as some kind of general negative judgment — I hope they won't do that. Only factual errors and disagreement, I'm hoping.
---
The axis you mention agree/disagree + laudable/problematic — I'm thinking they might be too complicated? Wouldn't people need to read the FAQ to clearly understand how to use these four buttons? — However I do think that something like what you're describing could work at a site like Hacker News.
There's some forum software, Vanilla forums, that sometimes show Like/Agree/Disagree buttons. However, when I studied a few discussions, people essentially never clicked Agree/Disagree, they only used the Like button. -- However, I just found a discussion where people actually do use the Agree/Disagree buttons, see: http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/134718/what-is-it... Perhaps that's little bit what you were looking for (?), only that they're using 'Awesome' instead of 'Laudable'/'Problematic'.
---
It is possible to click 'Like' and 'Wrong' at the same time actually (a bit like the Voltaire Vote). — However 'Like' + 'Wrong' does sound a bit vague to me, I agree. It could be interesting to explore some possibility for people to clarify why they liked something — perhaps a dialog could appear, that was easy to dismiss, where you could click some button that clarified why you liked it or thought it was wrong.
If 'like' is supposed to mean 'worth reading', maybe it should really be labelled 'recommended'?
But also, if there's only one vaguely-negative (or vaguely-positive) button available, it'll be used for all similar feelings when the reader is only lazy enough for a 'tick' rather than a composed-comment. (Even with these problems, though, collecting such 'lazy' easy-single-gesture feedback seems a good thing, for many kinds of sites: driving engagement and community self-governance way way up.)
So I don't think you can confine 'wrong' to "factual errors and disagreement". And I still find it odd that you'd want mix to mix 'wrong' with 'disagree'. Saying "you're wrong!" in a conversation is a challenge - it may need to be backed up, or require a defense/fix (or else relative statuses suffer damage). Saying "we disagree" can instead be a friendly, "I hear and understand you, but we neither will nor have to agree today" - and both sides retain their relative status.
People also often choose to compete for the "most agreed" - but if there's no punishment (in de-ranking/fading/loss-of-status/implied-censure) when you lose, those competitions can be a lot more civil and productive: the mobthink/piling-on/"we-must-enforce-and-cast-out" impulses are kept on a shorter leash.
I doubt in most cases that a secondary prompt requiring explanation is a good idea, except if explicitly desired as a way to slow/discourage a certain option (the 'problematic' censure/flag), or as initial 'training wheels' for new users. You'd not want to add it as a complication to the positive-feedback ticks that (if all is going well) you want to multiply to boost mood and engagement.
And yes, the UI and explanation for a two-indepdendent-axis system is a major challenge, even moreso because people are now trained-up on other systems. Some hunches:
• while the axes would be in a virtual compass-rose – up:laudable, down:problematic, left:agree, right:disagree – the actual controls would have some distance from each other, and (if possible) from the leftmost position that Reddit/HN/etc has trained-in
• the agree/disagree (opinion) totals are always shown – not just net but total of each – but as a left-right sparkline-like graph, and with no effect on ranking/fading. This rewards people for those votes: they see the tally change, and thus know that they've been counted.
• the laudable/problematic (moderation) totals are never shown, but are somewhat inferrable by ranking/visibility. As with HN, site moderators might override default positioning to help set norms and cap campaigning that spills into the moderation-axis.
And of course, all of it is very subtle until you try to tick/hover over it – low distraction from flow of text – and much is probably hidden from new users, until they incrementally familiarize with site norms and features.
'Recommend' instead of 'Like' would probably work, yes. Hmm, people are used to 'Like' and it might sound a bit more friendly / less formal. — Also, 'Like' can be used as an 'I strongly agree' button (fewer buttons needed).
But perhaps 'Wrong' should be renamed to 'Disagree' (?). 'Disagree' might work also for factual errors. — If there were the buttons 'Like' and 'Disagree', I'm thinking this would be like the system you suggest, except that there was no 'Problematic' button, and that 'Agree' and 'Laudable' were merged into one single 'Like' button.
A sparkline graph would have been cool :-) I'm thinking it's hard to implement in comparison to how many people would understand it and find it really interesting though.
---
One reason I like the idea with a 'Like' button is that it seems to work well: have a look at http://www.discourse.org — they have a Like button, and nothing else. I find it useful and interesting to know what other people like, even if I don't know if it's because the comment is high-quality or it's because people strongly agree (well, until I've read the comment). And instead of any 'Problematic' button, I think they want people to simply ignore, or possibly flag, low quality comments.
In addition to 'Like', I'm thinking it's good to have some way to inform people about bad/harmful advice. The downvotes work well at StackOverflow / StackExchange I think.
So that's roughly my motivation behind Like + Wrong/Disagree.