4 ms·

This community does a pretty good job of disagreeing. Even the occasional bit of name-calling is usually buried in something thoughtful. Irrelevance seems to

This community does a pretty good job of disagreeing. Even the occasional bit of name-calling is usually buried in something thoughtful. Irrelevance seems to be a greater danger to the comments here than the method of disagreements. The comments are a place for discussing the content of the submitted article. They are not a place for complaining about the NYTimes registration, light text on a dark background, etc...

chrischen 17y ago
Irrelevance can simply be ignored, or if necessary, flagged. It can then sink to the bottom of the page with little consequence. But a down-vote has negative social consequences. It affects the types of comment that show up and shapes and refines the tone here so that eventually only the popular types show up.
- akkartik 17y ago
  I see irrelevant but funny/praising/criticising comments upvoted to +4 or even +14 all the time.[1] The assumption that bad comments will get less votes is a canard. As the community grows, the same people adding comments also add their votes. If anything, they're more likely to vote since it's just a click, and so noob votes will drown old users even more. It's not just downvotes but any votes that have negative social consequences. Update [1] Exhibit A: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1021157 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1021157
  - elblanco 17y ago
    This is an important point. >It's not just downvotes but any votes that have negative social consequences. Upvotes also tend to select for popular modes of thinking. In the end, a system of only upvotes makes people want to only post things that will be perceived as popular by the community.
    - chrischen 17y ago
      Yes true, but it is at least positive reinforcement, whereas downvoting is negative reinforcement. Negative reinforcement is conditioning through fear. So ignoring the potential ethical problems of conditioning through fear, there have been studies to show that positive reinforcement is better: https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/1811/4924/1/V63N02_087.pdf https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/1811/4924/1/V63N02_087.p...
      - elblanco 17y ago
        That's a bit alarmist, but I can't really think of a better way to put it I guess. Positive reinforcement does have the advantage of encouraging more participation.
        kburn 17y ago
        I can say, as a new guy, that I would participate more if that were the case.
  - elblanco 17y ago
    > [1] Exhibit A: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1021157 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1021157 This is one of the rare cases where humor bought upvotes. I'd say for every 10 evenly mildly humorous comments, 9 of them are voted down.
    - akkartik 17y ago
      I agree. And the upvoted humor needs to be relatively good to get past our collective restraint. A few days ago I instinctively clicked on a funny comment before regretting it; that prob happens to a lot of folks. But a) I see a couple of upvoted funnies everyday, and b) things are worse than they were a year ago. I'm joining in the fuss about it in hopes that we can stem the rot.
- elblanco 17y ago
  At risk of being downvoted even more, this is precisely the type of communal degradation we saw on digg and then reddit. On digg the average quality of the posts dropped to near youtube levels, and on reddit the community fractured to extremes of opinion.
  - chrischen 17y ago
    Don't be afraid to post what you think.
    - elblanco 17y ago
      Considering the downvote patrol knocked 10% off of my karma just yesterday when I posted essentially that "people abuse downvoting, it has consequences and I don't like it". I am absolutely afraid to post what I think. When I did get a response as to why, the self-justifications were fairly alarming. Of course, if you notice it doesn't stop me, but that's because I'm a stubborn stick in the mud. I suspect that loads of people who are not as thick skinned as I am are afraid.
      - chrischen 17y ago
        Exactly I think this is the most dangerous aspect of downvoting that really overshadows any other negative implication of removing downvoting. I mean if you weren't upvoted, I doubt that would discourage you from posting stuff.
      - jodrellblank 17y ago
        > I am absolutely afraid to post what I think Why? What have you to fear from being down voted?
        chrischen 17y ago
        He has nothing to fear but fear itself. That and disapproval I'd presume.
GrandMasterBirt 17y ago
You ignorant idiot. Of course someone like you will agree to this article, you constantly disagree on this form. You just use this to reinforce your one-sided view. I can't believe that you would just blindly agree to anything Paul Graham says so casually. I honestly can't understand why you listen to Paul Graham. He is a known ignorant programmer who just thinks he can run companies. Complaining about other news in a comment about something different is a good thing, people get to have discussions and often an interesting point related to the article as well as other articles that may be related or come out at the same time emerge. If you look at articles even from today with tangents, you will notice irrelevance gets down-voted quickly. "Irrelevance seems to be a greater danger to the comments here than the method of disagreements" I can't disagree more. We don't sort responses on a user-preference level. Responses are sorted based on relevance. Each response is ranked by other uses of hacker news thus getting the irrelevant down the list quickly. After a few screens on any topic on hacker news you will start to get to irrelevance, and even when browsing you will see points, which help you immediately ignore a response, hell irrelevant ones get discolored. I think you are totally off with your point. Basically the biggest issue we face on hacker news is the threat of being invaded by those same people who bicker on other sites. Nothing gives me chills more than thinking that MasterPlanSoftware from thedailywtf.com will hit up this site and start posting. His posts were usually DH1 (with an occasional DH2) and he would keep going. An even worse fear is that spectateswamp will look in our direction (please google him, also see www.thestupidestmanonearth.com). When articles like why's disappearance start filling up 1-2 pages of articles on HN is when these fears get surfaced again. Fortunately we were moderated well so that when such problems occur we get massive posts about erlang driving the non-believers away. So in the end, I think hacker news is perfect. Hows that? as a side note I disagree with everything I just said
- lisper 17y ago
  Whoever is downmodding this apparently has no sense of irony :-)
  - olavk 17y ago
    One thing I have noted about irony: In written text, where you don't have cues like tone of voice or body language to detect irony, you usually rely on your the knowledge of the writer: This person does not usually write like this/have this viewpoint, hence it must be ironic. On an internet forum you usually don't know the person writing (unless you keep track of usernames). And no viewpoint is so extreme or bizarre that there isn't someone somewhere on the internet saying the same thing in all seriousness. You cannot detect irony just by looking at the post in isolation. Irony can be detected when are familiar with the poster or the general sentiments on the forum, and detect when something is so far removed from the norm that is must be ironic. In turn irony can be used as a marker for group - everyone in the group know what you are supposed to say, an therefore can easily detect when the group members are being ironic. Outsiders will not understand the irony and get confused. Hence "you have no sense of irony" actually means "you haven't been on the forum long enough to be familiar with the comme il faut viewpoints and language used here. You are not part of the club."

chrischen 17y ago

Irrelevance can simply be ignored, or if necessary, flagged. It can then sink to the bottom of the page with little consequence. But a down-vote has negative social consequences. It affects the types of comment that show up and shapes and refines the tone here so that eventually only the popular types show up.

akkartik 17y ago
I see irrelevant but funny/praising/criticising comments upvoted to +4 or even +14 all the time.[1] The assumption that bad comments will get less votes is a canard. As the community grows, the same people adding comments also add their votes. If anything, they're more likely to vote since it's just a click, and so noob votes will drown old users even more. It's not just downvotes but any votes that have negative social consequences. Update [1] Exhibit A: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1021157 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1021157
- elblanco 17y ago
  This is an important point. >It's not just downvotes but any votes that have negative social consequences. Upvotes also tend to select for popular modes of thinking. In the end, a system of only upvotes makes people want to only post things that will be perceived as popular by the community.
  - chrischen 17y ago
    Yes true, but it is at least positive reinforcement, whereas downvoting is negative reinforcement. Negative reinforcement is conditioning through fear. So ignoring the potential ethical problems of conditioning through fear, there have been studies to show that positive reinforcement is better: https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/1811/4924/1/V63N02_087.pdf https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/1811/4924/1/V63N02_087.p...
    - elblanco 17y ago
      That's a bit alarmist, but I can't really think of a better way to put it I guess. Positive reinforcement does have the advantage of encouraging more participation.
      - kburn 17y ago
        I can say, as a new guy, that I would participate more if that were the case.
- elblanco 17y ago
  > [1] Exhibit A: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1021157 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1021157 This is one of the rare cases where humor bought upvotes. I'd say for every 10 evenly mildly humorous comments, 9 of them are voted down.
  - akkartik 17y ago
    I agree. And the upvoted humor needs to be relatively good to get past our collective restraint. A few days ago I instinctively clicked on a funny comment before regretting it; that prob happens to a lot of folks. But a) I see a couple of upvoted funnies everyday, and b) things are worse than they were a year ago. I'm joining in the fuss about it in hopes that we can stem the rot.
elblanco 17y ago
At risk of being downvoted even more, this is precisely the type of communal degradation we saw on digg and then reddit. On digg the average quality of the posts dropped to near youtube levels, and on reddit the community fractured to extremes of opinion.
- chrischen 17y ago
  Don't be afraid to post what you think.
  - elblanco 17y ago
    Considering the downvote patrol knocked 10% off of my karma just yesterday when I posted essentially that "people abuse downvoting, it has consequences and I don't like it". I am absolutely afraid to post what I think. When I did get a response as to why, the self-justifications were fairly alarming. Of course, if you notice it doesn't stop me, but that's because I'm a stubborn stick in the mud. I suspect that loads of people who are not as thick skinned as I am are afraid.
    - chrischen 17y ago
      Exactly I think this is the most dangerous aspect of downvoting that really overshadows any other negative implication of removing downvoting. I mean if you weren't upvoted, I doubt that would discourage you from posting stuff.
    - jodrellblank 17y ago
      > I am absolutely afraid to post what I think Why? What have you to fear from being down voted?
      - chrischen 17y ago
        He has nothing to fear but fear itself. That and disapproval I'd presume.

GrandMasterBirt 17y ago

You ignorant idiot. Of course someone like you will agree to this article, you constantly disagree on this form. You just use this to reinforce your one-sided view. I can't believe that you would just blindly agree to anything Paul Graham says so casually. I honestly can't understand why you listen to Paul Graham. He is a known ignorant programmer who just thinks he can run companies. Complaining about other news in a comment about something different is a good thing, people get to have discussions and often an interesting point related to the article as well as other articles that may be related or come out at the same time emerge. If you look at articles even from today with tangents, you will notice irrelevance gets down-voted quickly. "Irrelevance seems to be a greater danger to the comments here than the method of disagreements" I can't disagree more. We don't sort responses on a user-preference level. Responses are sorted based on relevance. Each response is ranked by other uses of hacker news thus getting the irrelevant down the list quickly. After a few screens on any topic on hacker news you will start to get to irrelevance, and even when browsing you will see points, which help you immediately ignore a response, hell irrelevant ones get discolored. I think you are totally off with your point. Basically the biggest issue we face on hacker news is the threat of being invaded by those same people who bicker on other sites. Nothing gives me chills more than thinking that MasterPlanSoftware from thedailywtf.com will hit up this site and start posting. His posts were usually DH1 (with an occasional DH2) and he would keep going. An even worse fear is that spectateswamp will look in our direction (please google him, also see www.thestupidestmanonearth.com). When articles like why's disappearance start filling up 1-2 pages of articles on HN is when these fears get surfaced again. Fortunately we were moderated well so that when such problems occur we get massive posts about erlang driving the non-believers away. So in the end, I think hacker news is perfect. Hows that? as a side note I disagree with everything I just said

lisper 17y ago
Whoever is downmodding this apparently has no sense of irony :-)
- olavk 17y ago
  One thing I have noted about irony: In written text, where you don't have cues like tone of voice or body language to detect irony, you usually rely on your the knowledge of the writer: This person does not usually write like this/have this viewpoint, hence it must be ironic. On an internet forum you usually don't know the person writing (unless you keep track of usernames). And no viewpoint is so extreme or bizarre that there isn't someone somewhere on the internet saying the same thing in all seriousness. You cannot detect irony just by looking at the post in isolation. Irony can be detected when are familiar with the poster or the general sentiments on the forum, and detect when something is so far removed from the norm that is must be ironic. In turn irony can be used as a marker for group - everyone in the group know what you are supposed to say, an therefore can easily detect when the group members are being ironic. Outsiders will not understand the irony and get confused. Hence "you have no sense of irony" actually means "you haven't been on the forum long enough to be familiar with the comme il faut viewpoints and language used here. You are not part of the club."