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Ask HN: I often don't read the stories I upvote and vice-versa

The HN content I get the most value out of is not always the content I upvote.

Sometimes, I'll hit the back button in the middle of an article to altruistically upvote it, but often, I'll upvote based on other signals even though I don't end up reading the articles.

For example, I looked at my history just now. I upvoted

"Solid – A set of conventions and tools for decentralized social applications (mit.edu)"

because MIT + Bootstrap Page + Tim Berners-Lee = Upvote

In retrospect, that was the extent of the mental calculus I did. I did not read the article and don't know what Solid is.

Would HN vote buttons that detected a third-party cookie and reduced the friction to vote off HN (like Facebook Like buttons) mitigate this? Or, do you all generally upvote what you read and vice-versa?

4 points johnwheeler 10 years ago 4 comments

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