I remember we discussed that. I think once-for-all votes were an attempt at social engineering to shape the site.

I'm really curious what it was trying to social-engineer. I've seen dozens of sites with vote buttons and all of them except HN allow you to change your vote, because why wouldn't you? It's easy to engineer and obviously superior.

"think thrice before using your votes". I remember this being also used as the justification for not having clearly separated up/down buttons.

I totally disagree with it, fwiw.

I personally think "having an interface that makes it nigh impossible to downvote when you meant to upvote" should be a prerequisite for the "think thrice before using your votes" goal...

Well at least they're doing something to address it now.

In any case, I still disagree with the lack of a reverse vote option, especially when upvoting also serves as an archival mechanism, and downvoting removes the opportunity to use that functionality permanently.

    > especially when upvoting also serves as an archival mechanism

Right - it's not even about _changing_ votes. Just an hour or so ago I accidentally upvoted the wrong submission (on mobile), so now that's stored in my "saved stories"; nothing I can do about it.

It makes some sense - In theory you wouldn't cast your vote prematurely (after reading the first sentence for example).

In theory, but in practice do they have some evidence that people care more when they can't undo their vote?

Also it's a little unfortunate that the up-vote button can be easily mistaken for a link-to-parent button. I've lost count of the number of comments I've up-voted when actually I just wanted to know who they were replying to.

It's a bit reminiscent of the purported ancient Rome thumbs-down (or thumbs-up).

I'm not against that, but I bet it would require a lot more work than a styling change.

I've heard via email that this is in the cards.