What's the deal with +1?

September 16, 2009 8:36 AM

What's the deal with +1?

I started seeing people using +1 as a form of kudos or assigning value on various message boards a couple months ago. I'm curious what the history of the usage might be. Seems like just in the past couple of weeks it's been popping up on Metafilter with more regularity.

So what's the deal?

posted by misterpatrick to Computers & Internet (35 answers total)

I'm not certain of this, but I believe I once saw the explanation that it was taken from Mario Brothers and how scores/hits/whatevers were acknowledged.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:39 AM on September 16, 2009

I always thought it was an abbreviated form of slashdot-style moderation, e.g.: +1, Insightful.
posted by bfranklin at 8:44 AM on September 16, 2009 [2 favorites]

Seems like a reference to the Slashdot moderation system.
posted by ellF at 8:45 AM on September 16, 2009

I'd trace it back to the Slashdot moderation system (users can mark comments with things such as "+1 Insightful," "+1 Funny," "+1 Informative," "-1 Troll," "-1 Off-Topic," etc.; users can filter which comments are displayed based on their net score).

However, the Slashdot moderation system has been around for years, so that doesn't explain the recent prevalence. It may be that other forums have adopted similar moderation systems (although just +1/-1 without the various categories) more recently.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 8:47 AM on September 16, 2009

Response by poster: Thanks for the responses. Slashdot would make sense. But interesting that it is suddenly appearing in several forums I read in just the past few weeks.

I am not waiting for it to start appearing in everyday spoken conversation. Maybe it will make an appearance on 30 Rock.
posted by misterpatrick at 8:51 AM on September 16, 2009

I agree, it's a reference to the Slashdot moderation points.

(This comment is an Elucidation of Excessive Insight +4 (which has absolutely no relation to the /. moderation system and is more of a D&D reference).
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 8:54 AM on September 16, 2009

It might also be coming from the technical camp -- specifically, +1/-1 voting is a style of voting that's frequently used in open source software development to help make or record decisions. Affirmation (+1), confirmation (0), and consternation (-1). http://www.apache.org/foundation/voting.html
posted by hobu at 8:54 AM on September 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

I've heard programmers say "+1 to that" in conversation, meaning "I concur", "amen", "right on" or "fuckin' A", as the case may be.
posted by rokusan at 8:56 AM on September 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

I'm not familiar with the slashdot method. I've always assumed it meant, "add one more to the number of people who agree with that opinion."
posted by davcoo at 8:58 AM on September 16, 2009 [2 favorites]

+1 has been used on the Russian-language sites as a way of agreeing with the previous comment for years. Not sure about the source though.
posted by whimwit at 9:01 AM on September 16, 2009

The Python voting guidelines use a +1/+0/-1/-1 system, and they credit the Apache procedure as its inspiration. I've been using Slashdot and its moderation system for many more years, but probably would not have considered expressing my opinion by saying simply "+1" without exposure to this voting procedure.
posted by grouse at 9:02 AM on September 16, 2009

I always thought it was a carryover from the Craigslist discussion forums, where you can + or _ posts. F'rinstance.
posted by chez shoes at 9:10 AM on September 16, 2009

I always assumed it was D & D reference, but the /. answer makes more sense
posted by Think_Long at 9:11 AM on September 16, 2009 [2 favorites]

Kuro5hin.org? *shrug*
posted by infinitewindow at 9:20 AM on September 16, 2009

For anyone associated with open source software, it's definitely based on Apache's voting procedure (as is many other open source best practices). I've never seen it used in on its own in a Slashdot context.
posted by effbot at 9:20 AM on September 16, 2009

Fark also has a voting system (for TotalFarkers, anyway) that shows the headline vote count in (+n) notation. Farkers, when they vote up a particularly good headline, usually put a "+1" in a comment as well. This has been going on for two years, maybe? And I always found it distinct from the Slashdot moderation system.
posted by olinerd at 9:27 AM on September 16, 2009

Slashdot, reddit, digg, and countless other internet forums use a voting system where users can give points or "karma" to another user's comment. It's a way of saying that you did or did not like what they said, or that it is off topic, rude, interesting, whatever. They're also known as "upvotes" and "downvotes". Generally, comment points are awarded anonymously. On sites with no point or karma system, users will sometimes say "+1" because they cannot actually grant a point through the site. Other times, the +1 is a way of removing the anonymity of voting.
posted by JuiceBoxHero at 9:29 AM on September 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

+1 to rokusan's answer: as an undergrad science geek we used to use this as a short hand for agreement. It was widely current among the physics/engineering/math communities in the 1980s.

If you were in agreement with the n^th person to hold an opinion on a topic, then, naturlich, you were the (n+1)^th individual to have that opinion. Thus, "+1" indicated agreement on some matter.
posted by bonehead at 9:31 AM on September 16, 2009

I had thought it had originated on dev mailing lists with regards to submitting patches, etc. I believe it pre-dates Slashdot. Unfortunately I can't seem to convince Google groups to search for the literal string "+1" as it wants to use the + as a meta-character.
posted by GuyZero at 9:44 AM on September 16, 2009

+everyone; it's from Slashdot. (Or, in my case, Plastic, but don't tell anyone.)
posted by Metroid Baby at 11:09 AM on September 16, 2009

I don't think it's Slashdot. Many people (me included) don't read it or follow its memes but use the phrase. As ingroups go, Slashdot is tiny tiny tiny.

I would associate it with RPGs/D&D and levelling up.
posted by spamguy at 11:28 AM on September 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

I was going to say Plastic as well.

It's better than favorites
posted by electroboy at 11:28 AM on September 16, 2009

i've been guilty of using it occasionally. i was an early slashdot adopter, but i don't think i got it from there. i don't really use it to mean that i'm modding the comment up as one would on slashdot. rather, i use it to signify complete agreement with the comment in every manner, including both content and phrasing. basically i use it as shorthand for: "the comment above is the exact comment i would have written, so imagine that you read that comment one more time than you actually did."

in a sufficiently geeky forum i will use "++" to mean the same thing.

now that i read this AskMe, however, i realize that this practice is hopelessly ambiguous, and i will endeavor to stop.
posted by 256 at 12:02 PM on September 16, 2009

Predates slashdot by foreer. For me it's programming/maths. n+1 as previously stated.
posted by Iteki at 12:06 PM on September 16, 2009

I first heard about it on the Apache mailing lists as a way of voting as the link above shows. Now where Apache got it from is an open question. Bonehead suggests that it was popular in science/math/engineering programs during the 80s and I would bet a lot of the founders of the Apache foundation's college years overlap with that time period.
posted by mmascolino at 12:23 PM on September 16, 2009

Craigslist Chat Rooms has or had the same thing, back around 2001, at least.
posted by sully75 at 12:58 PM on September 16, 2009

Always thought it was from mario you know 1UP.
posted by Rubbstone at 1:10 PM on September 16, 2009

Dungeons and Dragons style role-playing games are popular in the same circles, and predate all internet sites. And +1 is common in Dungeons and Dragons.
posted by koeselitz at 1:23 PM on September 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

...and I think it's fair to assume that the use of +1 on slashdot actually derived from D&D.
posted by koeselitz at 1:25 PM on September 16, 2009

Wikipedia disambiguation page on "+1." Doesn't offer answers, but interesting nonetheless.
posted by koeselitz at 1:29 PM on September 16, 2009

...and I think it's fair to assume that the use of +1 on slashdot actually derived from D&D.

Really? You're drawing an awfully long bow of Vorpal Inference +5 there.

Last time I checked (it has been a while), Slashdot moderation results in an integer score for a comment (in the range -5 to 5). This score is based on a sum of individual moderators scoring the comment -1, +1 or 0. I don't see much relation to D&D.
posted by zamboni at 2:06 PM on September 16, 2009

Oh, and +1 for Apache voting as a source for this trend.
posted by zamboni at 2:07 PM on September 16, 2009

Maybe; maybe not. I guess I can't say, and unless I can actually find a true link, I can't really make the claim solidly.

Be that as it may, I have a downloaded copy of the original 1974 Gygax & Arneson manual Dungeons & Dragons, Volume I: Men & Magic. I find this on page 18:

Dice for Accumulative Hits (Hit Dice): This indicates the number of dice which are rolled in order to determine how many hit points a character can take. Plusses are merely the number of pips to add to the total of all dice rolled not to each die. Thus a Super Hero gets 8 dice + 2; they are rolled and score 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6/totals 26 + 2 = 28, 28 being the number of points of damage the character could sustain before death. Whether sustaining accumulative hits will otherwise affect a character is left to the discretion of the referee. [Emphasis mine.]

This is how the concept of +1, +2, etc. is introduced there; but of course this applies not only to hit points but also to the worth of weapons and defenses against said hit points, i.e. a +1 Mace or a +3 Shield.

That's the RPG lineage of the term, anyhow; it's correct that no indication of a connection to the slashdot community or online forums in general has been established.
posted by koeselitz at 2:20 PM on September 16, 2009

I guess the reason I was drawing a connection between D&D and slashdot was this: slashdot moderation isn't just +/- integers, but also includes karma points and percentage scores. All of that adds up, at least in my mind, to something eerily similar to the personality-scoring systems familiar in role-playing games.
posted by koeselitz at 2:23 PM on September 16, 2009

Response by poster: These are all great answers. I'm interested in how ingroup phrases transition out of those groups and become their own little entities. Much the same way the Twitter # (like #fail) has moved from Twitter and become its own signifier. What about the '.' to show respect or mourning? What's the history of that? Originally Metafilter or somewhere else. Personally, I've always found that one strange. Kind of like I'm going to respect the passing of this person by doing as little as possible to contribute to the remembrance. But that's me.

Being so short with wild characters makes them hard to search for using Google etc.
posted by misterpatrick at 2:28 PM on September 16, 2009