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    1. Discussion: The merits of removing the ability to vote from the "main" page

      So I was thinking the other day -- is there any good reason to allow voting from the main ~'s page? For clarity in this discussion, I'm talking about this view. Some pro's and con's for removing...

      So I was thinking the other day -- is there any good reason to allow voting from the main ~'s page? For clarity in this discussion, I'm talking about this view.

      Some pro's and con's for removing the vote button from the main page:

      Pro:

      • Discourages "drive-by" voting. We all (mostly?) know that reddit in particular is notorious for having highly up-voted posts that most users read the headline / top-comment and not the article itself. This is particularly noxious for political posts, as often times a vote on a post is an extension of one's own biases / beliefs, rather than an engagement on the topic at hand. This hasn't reared it's head to the same extent on ~'s yet (this post with 15 votes / and only 1 comment would seem to be the closest I can find), but I think it would be a mistake to think that this sort of behavior wouldn't migrate over from reddit. Other reasons for voting on a post without at least getting into the comments are equally bad e.g.: "Oh, I like that band / song / movie / whatever" -- this is a key driver of recycled content on /r/music or movies or tv etc. This reason alone is enough for me to consider removing front-page voting a net-positive

      • The user is forced to enter the comments to vote, wherein they may actually read something that sparks their desire to read the thing / interact with the post. The goal on ~'s is to promote substantive discussion, and I think this would be an interesting tool to try to direct users to said discussion.

      Cons

      • It's more inconvenient, but hey -- so is putting the comment box at the bottom of the page (and I think that's a good idea on net as well)

      • UI inconsistency -- this is a bad thing, but we've got a lot of smart computer people on here. We can probably figure out some way to make this work.

      • It doesn't actually force the user to read / listen / interact with the submission, just suggests that they do. But hey, let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, eh?

      Hanging Questions

      • What about voting on ~group pages? My off-the-cuff idea would be that voting on ~music.world.calypso would be a good thing (to promote organic growth of quality posts from small ~groups), but not voting on overarching groups (~music) -- but then the UI issue rears' it's ugly head

      • What about comment / submission voting from other places e.g.: user-pages, notifications, inbox replies, etc.

      19 votes