We're going for "nice".
Those of you playing at the
beta site should’ve noticed a big change in the comments—we’ve gotten rid of the HR functionality, including the ability to see who HR’d a comment. Jason explained our rationale
here, bolding is mine:
We’ve removed the display of who flagged (Hred) a comment. Instead, if a comment is ‘contentious’, that is if its just a few hrs away from being hidden, the flag icon on the comment will get a red underline as an indication that the system needs the community to read the comment with an eye towards moderation.
The goal is to reduce the role of flagging to only marking comments from authors acting outside of site norms— that is to hide comments from trolls, people making ad hominem attacks, etc. Its my view that showing who has flagged a comment invites animosity or rivalry, and would make the flagging feature more of an indication of who didn’t like the comment than a moderation tool. I realize showing who cast HRs in the current system serves an important purpose— that is to cast light on abuses of HRs. I hope that the red underline ‘contentious’ comment decoration let’s people know that enough HRs have been cast that the community should step in and save or sink the comment. So, bad actors shouldn’t be able to beat the community at large, and should have no actual effect since the count of HRs or list of who HRed are no longer part of the interface. Trusted users will still be able to see and save hidden comments. Also, administrators will be able to see who cast flags against whom.
It is our belief that being able to see who HRs a comment creates continued and sustained animosity and hostility. It encourages pack behavior, where people pile on because they see their friends take negative action. It encourages piling-on because we are, at our root, pack animals. And it focuses people’s attention on what is a very negative action, and elicits further negative actions. And how many times does someone HR something by accident, and a comment thread is derailed by people trying to figure out why or what happened with that HR?
Furthermore, the flag icon provides subtle direction to the use of that feature—no one “flags” something because they disagree with it, they do so because they feel it is inappropriate for that particular situation. And really, that was the original intent of the HR button, an intent that is often violated.
So, now, if you flag something because you disagree with it, good for you! But no one else will know you have done so, so no one will be compelled to pile on. Also, the person being flagged won’t be penalized for it, because one or two flags won’t impact anyone's mojo. And, just as importantly, the person being flagged and/or his or her friends won’t feel compelled to retaliate against the flagger because they won’t know who they are. And we won’t have to suffer endless flame wars about what someone did or didn’t HR.
Now, if a comment starts receiving heavy flags, there will be visual cues to this so others can enter “moderation” mode and either confirm the flags or “rescue” the comment.
In short, we are eliminating as much of the negativity as possible. Recommends are still public, so we want people to know the nice ones. We know darn well that this won’t eliminate comment negativity, but it should go a long way toward mitigating the nasty side of our community.
And maybe it’ll be a big fail and we’ll revert. But I am hopeful, after a great deal of thought, that this will be a net positive.