Some people don't take being downvoted to heart as much as others (and rightly so) but I'm sure that no-one likes to be downvoted. It is only natural to feel a bit bad when your comment is downvoted (as we're no robots) and I really don't want other people feel bad just because I can't manage to click on the right vote button.
I don't know about "feeling bad" as I have discovered certain kinds of humor I like using that almost guarantees a downvote, even if my comment was valid. I pretty much learned to embrace the downvoting when I post something like that, because I'd rather say my piece than not. Still, it'd be nice to be able to undo a downvote.
It would be nice if you could change your vote like you can on Reddit. The arrows are quite close to each other and I've done the same thing several times. It's especially tricky on a touchscreen device.
[up-arrow] 13 points [down-arrow] by isleyaardvark 1 hour ago
This way, the up and down are unambiguously tied to the total number of points (nobody will wonder why there's a down arrow way over next to the word "link"), but are separated by enough of a margin that it's difficult to click the wrong one.
grinich's HN app for the iPhone & iPod Touch has the arrows far apart from each other (it's shown in the image next to the App Store logo and the screencast):
I think the narrow width of the iPhone makes it work, though. Your solution (also thought of by others) is the best solution I can think of for the website.
Ahhhh, I bet you were using an iPad or iPhone or some other touch screen device, yes?
This is an issue: HN up/down votes + touch screen devices.
Yes, some will say be more careful, but I say up/down voting on sites in general are due for an interface/interaction redesign in light of ever increasing touch devices.
I don't think I've ever used a touch device. I have used a treo and centro stylus device that also works with a fingernail.
Don't these things have some sort of mouse/cursor emulator mode, for fine control when it's needed? It'd be easy enough to use: get into fine mouse mode however you do that, and then you can drag your finger anywhere. Your finger doesn't directly manipulate what's under it; instead, the mouse cursor moves. Tap, double tap, triple tap, etc.
I normally reply with a comment where I state that I meant to upvote and accidentally downvoted.
Psychology takes care of the rest - within minutes someone else will have upvoted the comment based on my comment. This mechanism could probably be used for malicious purposes if you cared enough about karma and not enough about basic decency.
Please don't reply saying you downvoted by mistake if you aren't already adding a comment to it, from what I've seen everything works out in the long run and accidental downvote comments just distract from the whole.
I would prefer you don't. Meta is boring and usually unwelcome on HN (from what I've seen). I don't want to read a comment about how you voted or meant to vote.
No I don't think it does, I'm sure that there are several magnitudes more upvotes than downvotes so assuming that the probabilty of accidental upvoting is the same as accidental downvotes, there must be a lot more downvotes-meant-to-be-upvotes then upvotes-meant-to-be-downvotes.
"Don't fix the UI problem, work around it! Who cares if a good comment is downvoted and a possibly worse one upvoted, as long as the user's total karma is correct?" Is that your suggestion?
I was responding to the concerns of someone who was upset at accidentally downvoting a comment. I suggested two solutions, one which would restore karma, and one which would explain the downvote. Obviously not intended for SOP. One could use either solution, both, or neither.
After thinking about this more, I think you're wrong. There are at least two purposes to voting. One is to help find better comments, because points are associated with the comments.
But the other purpose is to provide karma to the posters. Otherwise there would be no accumulation of points associated with posters and shown next to your name when you're logged in.
Past 200 it doesn't matter. There is no extra functionality that gets enabled, so it only is an odometer telling you how much work you could have done.
After I recently accidentally downvoted a comment to zero I wrote a answer to that comment, apologizing and asking two people to volunteer upvotes. After the parent picked up some votes a few minutes later I deleted my comment. But that’s certainly only possible for submissions high up on the frontpage which are seen by a lot of people.
I probably wouldn’t do that when I weren’t sure that many people would see my comment within minutes, I also wouldn’t do it when I accidentally downvoted someone who already has a few karma points.
Karma isn't enough. Apparently there's also an average karma per comment threshold.
The down-arrow is always displayed for me, but often the up and down-arrows have no real effect: for instance, if I upvote a comment its count goes up but after I reload the page the count is back at where it was. This is a known behavior though I don't think it's documented.
- The karma points don't mean anything.
- if the comment was in fact good, it will be corrected by other viewers
- the comment can not have been so good that you should spend a bad afternoon thinking about it
- in just a few hours, nobody will ever see that comment again, because new articles and comments will continue to come in.
No, really, no need to feel bad: this is just a comment, this is just a pretty meaningless karma point.