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HN is the most intelligent and open minded online community of this size that I know online. I have deep respect for you guys and girls and your opinions are a

HN is the most intelligent and open minded online community of this size that I know online. I have deep respect for you guys and girls and your opinions are always enlightening and thought provoking. I really feel much smarter because I have access to all these very valid points of view that you are surfacing. But even this community suffers from this strange phenomena of "group think" which leads me to go into this spiral of silence. I often find myself self-censoring or abandoning the comment halfway, because I know it will get down voted and it's just a waste of time. And I'm not talking about trolling or being aggressive or flaming.. Some opinions are just not accepted here on HN and the comment will get down voted fast regardless of how politely or respectfully you try to put it. This is my 3rd HN account - I've abandoned the others (with lots of karma on them) specifically as a protest for (what I thought were) valid opinions being down voted and dismissed. For example, mentioning ideas that some tech might be bad or harmful - that people are addicted to devices, that tech is causing widespread pollution - and the likes - are quickly buried, even though in my view these are subjects which we must openly discuss, since they widely affect us all. Which brings me to the thought: If one of the most intelligent and open minded online communities can exhibit censorship or can determine users to self-censor, then what can be said about other communities/platforms ?

fweespee_ch 11y ago
> I often find myself self-censoring or abandoning the comment halfway, because I know it will get down voted and it's just a waste of time. Please don't, it is just karma. > Which brings me to the thought: If one of the most intelligent and open minded online communities can exhibit censorship or can determine users to self-censor, then what can be said about other communities/platforms ? I think its an example of a problem that is difficult to solve because you want to surface the content that makes the majority happy which becomes naturally self reinforcing. That said, I'd like to see a platform that surfaces heavily downvoted content that received some upvotes as a hybrid with purely upvoted content. [e.g. +70, -100 is a comment probably worth ranking at +35 because the downvote/upvote split is likely opinion-based rather than purely factual]
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  It is not "just karma". This isn't Reddit. On here, low karma means you can't downvote (while higher-karma people can, so they can use that to suppress the opinions of the low-karma people), which effectively makes you a second-class citizen here. Even worse, if the mods disagree strongly with your post, they'll happily detach it (so no one else can see it) and threaten to ban you.
  - fweespee_ch 11y ago
    It is to me. I've got ~9 HN accounts over 1k and I cycle to a new one every so often because that is how little I care about the features that karma-gated. If you take HN seriously enough to care, ummm, why? No offense but this place largely acts like a more technically sophisticated Reddit with everything from downvoting factual statements to upvoting provably false opinion. That doesn't include the inherent bias in the design towards YC companies and so forth.
    - Grishnakh 11y ago
      How long have you been on here? I've been on here a few months I think, and I'm just a little over 400. I'm still a long way from 1000, and that's just one account. So to me, karma is pretty important; AFAIC, I'm just a second-class citizen here at this point. I do agree about your comparison to Reddit. Honestly, if my workplace didn't block Reddit, I probably wouldn't spend much time here.
      - fweespee_ch 11y ago
        > How long have you been on here? This account got over 300 karma in 20 days. ~60-90 days is how long it usually takes me to hit 1000+. On and off since 2010. If you want, I could probably give you one of my 1000+ accounts. I'm not sure if that is against the guidelines tho. I suppose I could email dang. xD
    - ionforce 11y ago
      Why do you care to care so little? Why not just stick to one account?
JoeAltmaier 11y ago
I'd encourage you to stop 'self-censoring'. What matters a few karma points, if you have something important to say? You'll find that often an initial knee-jerk downvoting can turn around half a day later, as more considerate users join the conversation.
- p4wnc6 11y ago
  I disagree. I have sometimes faced reply comments that are quite unreasonable and at times meant solely as insult. It's very rare here, but still a risk. But what's far worse is that the moderation of Hacker News functions with very little transparency. Even just Googling for the moderator `dang` turns up a lot of angry rants on other blogs and in other sections of the internet, full of people who feel wronged by black-box and one-sided moderation. It can be quite psychologically upsetting to post a comment, fall victim to group-think downvoting, try to add clarity or try to defend yourself against unreasonable comments, and then find yourself on the non-negotiable end of a black-box moderation action. If it was just meaningless karma downvotes, few would care. It's the actually hurtful responses and, there's no other way to put it, mean-spirited moderation activity that give pause. And I'm speaking as someone with a lot of anti-authoritarian tendencies. I'm not shy at all about speaking my mind and I struggle with finding a way to feign respect for authority apparatuses that are not legitimate, like HN moderation. If I feel this apprehension and backlash, I can only imagine that more timid readers feel it to a much more damaging degree.
  - dhimes 11y ago
    I had no idea this kind of thing happened. I've never seen it (and known what I was looking at anyway). I have, however, looked at some hellbanned accounts to see what caused the hellbanning and sometimes it's not apparent- that is, replies that aren't particularly insulting or vapid or anything obviously antisocial. I figured they were banned for some other reason- like sneaking advertisements in or something (that are now removed).
    - DanBC 11y ago
      Sometimes accounts get caught in an accidental hellban. In that case (if you've gone through the history and can't find anything obvious) you might want to email dang to let him know, or email the person to let them know. Or you could vouch for the person's posts. I think enough vouching would mean the account becomes unbanned? (Of course, this is just my opinion. I have no idea if it's true.)
elviejo 11y ago
Other topics to avoid Anything negative about: Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Ruby, Rails, Github, Vim and Javascript.
ywecur 11y ago
I couldn't agree more. I'm not sure how to solve the problem though, other than trying to teach people to treat the down vote button more respectfully. IMO there shouldn't be a down vote button at all, and to be honest I can't see its purpose. If a comment is trolling or being aggressive then you should flag it, so where is there room for the down vote button? It becomes quite intuitive to just use it for what you consider an "invalid opinion" regardless of how much you try to teach people otherwise, because it's so convenient to use and people are less rational when they are angered.
- ars 11y ago
  The downvote button is supposed to be for non-constructive (i.e. stupid/useless) or offtopic messages. Flag is for spam and very very inflammatory stuff. It is NOT supposed to be used for incorrect messages! (Or at least, if the message is grey, don't keep downvoting it just because there is a mistake in it. One downvote is enough.) And most especially it is not for disagreeing with someone - that's what the reply button is for. Too many people come here from reddit with the mentality that downvote is for disagreement.
  - kup0 11y ago
    I think the mentality that downvote = disagreement is widespread on any site with a karma/voting mechanism. Many subreddits themselves say right in the sidebar (and often elsewhere) that "downvote only if something is off-topic or does not contribute to discussion", but everyone still tends to use it that way. So I think the issue is somewhat bigger than reddit or HN or even just a certain slice of users. It seems to be a fundamental problem in understanding up/down votes. Maybe psychologically we're inclined to downvote when we disagree, whether consciously or not. I am also guilty of this even though I know better. It's hard to resist downvoting something I disagree with. It's like a natural response I have to actively work against. Edits: grammar / clarifying wording
    - ywecur 11y ago
      My theory is that it's because it's to convenient. A solution could be to move it to next to the flag button, maybe? And also making it a bit more difficult to do, like requiring the user to input a reason.
bcoates 11y ago
I think this is where the "community" metaphor breaks down; HN is not the equivalent of a civilization where a thousand flowers need to bloom to preserve the intellectual integrity of society; it is the equivalent of the club you shouldn't join if they'd have you as a member. The problem is not that people self-segregate into (multiple) communities where there is a common creed as to what ideas are worthy of discussion; the problem is when there is a suffocating universal consensus where there are ideas that have no home. There is no (useful) better, more open-minded community; there are just places where you can say things you shouldn't say on HN and vice versa. There's nothing wrong with circlej-rks as long as every jerk has a circle.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
ars 11y ago
If you don't have a bunch of heavily downmodded comments then you are doing it wrong. Wear them as a badge of honor, that you speak your mind.
BasDirks 11y ago
Besides the ones you mentioned, are there other such topics that tend to be taboo? I would like to keep an eye out, just for curiosity's sake. I don't know if high intelligence within a group bodes well for freedom of ideas. Intelligence itself is a form of censorship.
- gdwatson 11y ago
  Socially conservative views often get downvoted, but it seems to depend heavily on the thread. Whether it's a function of a given thread's topic or its participants is hard to say. The discussions of Brendan Eich's appointment and resignation contain lots of examples.
Kenji 11y ago
I am not sure if the HN community is intelligent and open-minded or if it's just filled with people who usually think like I do and are close-minded.
- justsaysmthng 11y ago
  Your comment is a good example. People here are willing to look at things from various angles and question things, while being respectful towards each other.
kirykl 11y ago
Maybe there's something to be said that the users with downvote ability have earned enough karma through upvotes. The community determines in this way that the only ones that can silence others are those with majority valued opinions
- ikawe 11y ago
  I really like discourse's stance on this which also gives points to users for reading posts. It's the lurkers who only give input when it's compelling and thought out that I want to hear from, vs jerks like me that spout their opinion on everything.
eternalban 11y ago
> even this community suffers from this strange phenomena of "group think" There is absolutely no social cost for downvoting without commenting. Adding costs and accountability: - force comment box on downvotes - deduct from karma - flagging only Is it important for HN's community to have a "psychologically safe" [1] at this point in time? I can not think of a more critical time for the "STEM" crowd to have a viable forum of discussion. Topics ranging from the expected behavior of tall steel structures subject to excessive heat (ahem), to digital rights, cryto, crypto-currency, voting systems, genetics, AI, ..., can all benefit from informed discussion and debate. HN membership, considering the depth and range observed, is entirely capable of this. [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learn... -- remember this one, HN?
- ywecur 11y ago
  Adding to this: Replace the down vote icon completely with the flagging icon, as the down vote icon probably encourages aggravated people to use it in the wrong way.
  - striking 11y ago
    HN rules don't say anything about the "wrong way" to use the downvote button. If anything, we're encouraged to use it in the way we feel is best.
    - lotharbot 11y ago
      in the past, pg has used the analogy that upvotes are not only for civility, so downvotes aren't restricted only to incivility. My own personal guideline: upvote = "I would like more comments like this" and downvote = "I would like less comments like this". My reason for wanting less comments of a particular type can be a lot of things -- incivility, factual incorrectness, being off-topic or distracting, being technically correct but misleading, or even being repetitive in relation to prior comments that already made the same point better.
erichocean 11y ago
I do the same on HN (self-censor, constantly) and have come to peace with it. I don't submit over 80% of the HN posts I write, and I immediately delete anything that gets one down vote. Furthermore, if I do post something that gets a down vote, I update my "don't post" probabilities to match, meaning I post even less. I'd encourage you to try and not feel bad about the situation. It's not your job to provide insight or knowledge to others, or even just plain old participation. If you don't like the response you get, just keep doing what you're doing: don't post. It's their loss. P.s. If this comment gets down-voted, which my filters tell me is "highly likely", I'll just leave this P.s. comment instead of doing a full delete like I usually do. Hopefully you'll have read it by then. :)
- jandrese 11y ago
  I on the other hand assume that random downvotes are part of the system and don't worry about them overly much. I also don't check on my post history except to see if there are replies to my comments. I have been kicked out of online communities for not aligning with the groupthink, but I tend to see that as a positive for me in the long run. If I'm so disliked by a community then I'm not going to force it. I one angered a guy so much he made up some random bullshit about me being a pedo and the mods bought it hook line and sinker. I decided that any place where the mods will ban you and never even respond to or probably even read your appeals is not worth the effort. That said, I don't go looking for fights. I'm not going to register a StormFront account anytime soon because everything I might say on there would just cause arguments and strife. Be an adult and stand by your opinions. Other people may disagree, but that's life. Sometimes you may even be wrong and change your mind later, but that's also life. The situation may also change and invalidate your old opinion. Most importantly don't be a dick.
  - Grishnakh 11y ago
    The problem is that karma is all-important on this site, and ends up creating different social strata, and a feedback mechanism which is what these other posters are complaining about. On Reddit, for example, it really doesn't matter if you get a few downvotes. Your post is still visible, and you still have the ability to up or downvote anyone else. You are not a lesser member of the community on that site when you get some downvotes. On here, you are. The system is explicitly designed to make it an echo chamber. If you have low karma, you can't downvote people, you can't post very much, and there are probably other more subtle ways they punish you for having low karma. So it's absolutely to your advantage, if you want to be a member of this "community" and actually have your posts seen and commented on so you can participate in useful and interesting discussion, to self-censor.
nsns 11y ago
Well, a community needs certain borders to become one; these may be implicit, but they certainly exist here. What's special in this forum, imo, is the level of discussion and the willingness to listen carefully and to react thoughtfully, and not its realization of some utopian ideal freedom (which probably would have destroyed it as a community). Yet again, an online community is obviously not a nation-state: one has chosen voluntarily and consciously to participate in it, and could always decide to leave and go elsewhere.
guessbest 11y ago
HN is just aggressively positive. I miss Slashdot. I liked that it had people who had industry knowledge who would post as an Anonymous Coward to correct someone who was being idealistic. I don't know where those people have gone, but it is certainly not here. They probably were dispersed to other sites.
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  Yep, Slashdot used to be great like that. Those people are gone now. They're not on SoylentNews, and there's sure as hell not on here. I don't think they're on Reddit either. They're not anywhere. My guess: they've retired from tech after getting tired of all the BS and nasty personalities, and done something entirely different with their lives. Maybe they took their savings and moved to Costa Rica and opened a restaurant on the beach.
  - marcosdumay 11y ago
    They are probably everywhere, but we lose their insight when they can't post as anonymous or it is hard to do so. Pseudonyms just won't cut it. Anyway, we also lose a great deal of spammers, trolls and just disturbing people. That's the other side of the coin.
    - r00fus 11y ago
      I see a lot of throwaway accounts here post interesting stuff - clearly like anon. Slashdot incurs a large cost (noise) in allowing anon comments - depending on who you ask, the moderation system either barely keeps that in check, or is completely insufficient.
clumsysmurf 11y ago
> If one of the most intelligent and open minded online communities can exhibit censorship or can determine users to self-censor, then what can be said about other communities/platforms ? Climate researchers are also self censoring, but for slightly different reasons. Given the stakes, its also an interesting case study. "In several important respects the modelling community is self-censoring its research to conform to the dominant political and economic paradigm" http://www.fdsd.org/what-we-are-reading/duality-in-climate-science-kevin-anderson/ http://www.fdsd.org/what-we-are-reading/duality-in-climate-s...
akamaka 11y ago
I looked at your comment history, and I don't think you got downvoted because of your opinions. It's more likely a matter of writing style. The folks here like efficient communication and concise, well thought-out arguments. Some of your long comments are more along the lines of Socratic self-debates where you are thinking through a subject in detail. There's nothing wrong with it, but it just doesn't fit the medium. HN is great for sharing insights on the news of the day, but not conducive to in-depth intellectual engagements.
- justsaysmthng 11y ago
  Thanks for the analysis :) I've been around for many years here on HN. I tend to change my password to something random from time to time, so I don't get too attached to my karma, burning man style. It helps. I don't think there's a fixed HN style for comments. Some people like flash comments and replies, some people enjoy longer, more thoughtful conversations. I guess it depends on the article/subject. I tend to be a slow thinker and a slow writer and apart from their length, I also spend a lot of time writing them. But once again, thanks for taking the time and maybe next time I'll remember to keep it shorter and to the point :).
- despinozist 11y ago
  Sounds like you're describing me.
Taek 11y ago
Anonymity often brings relief to people who weight otherwise self-censor. 4chan is a really good example of this. Though it's got a terrible SNR, the peak signal is actually really high and sometimes you see really intelligent discussions about taboo topics like incest, furrydom, and racism. The anonymity allows people to state beliefs that simply wouldn't be acceptable anywhere else. Maybe HN should have an 'anonymous' feature for accounts above a certain karma that allows a post to be made with no username attached, and no effect on karma. Behind the scenes, admins can still issue bans for unacceptable comments but the opinion gets protected from the groupthink.
- dandrews 11y ago
  Rather than an "anonymous feature", how about a "please moderate this post" flag? A post that requests moderation would not be eligible for upvotes or downvotes, or would even appear until it passed moderation. Of course, that means added work for the mods, or a new class of moderators altogether.
- lazzlazzlazz 11y ago
  I am often stunned at how eloquent some conversations are on 4chan, and am dismayed when I realize this is because anonymity allows us to be truthful without the baggage of reputation and consequences of controversy - which is how we make progress. We must never lose our ability to remain anonymous when necessary.
  - lake99 11y ago
    > I am often stunned at how eloquent some conversations are on 4chan Can you show me some examples? I tried browsing 4chan, but the site's navigation trips me up badly.
    - Joof 11y ago
      4chans posts are deleted after some time. And its at least 90% horrible garbage. Yes, some very smart people go there and some very intelligent discussions occur sometimes. I wish you luck!
yason 11y ago
I don't really care enough to self-censor and I often play a game of negative karma with myself here. To motivate myself to finish the comment I know won't be taken well in the average I first remind myself that the point of my comment isn't to cater to the consensus of the majority of the HN crowd but the reason I started writing it was because I felt something needed to be said and if there is one other person who finds my comment valuable, I have succeeded regardless of everything else. Secondly, in entering the game of negative karma I expect downvotes with the idea that the more I get the more sure I am I did strike the right chord there. It doesn't always work and I get a wave of upvotes instead, but you get the idea. I rarely look back except when my karma changes a lot overnight which is when I might take a look at what happened. Note that I don't, or at least I don't intend to, troll, insult, or talk off-topic in order to hog downvotes for my game. The downvotes themselves aren't the goal: I just consider them an indicator of success when writing a comment I'm pretty sure I won't be getting many upvotes either. It's like targetting controversy. Ideally, I aim to make remarks that question the status quo or find blind spots in collective assumptions. To close, I'm thinking about your question in the end. I think that self-censorship is about the need to belong. If you're an independent individualist you have no need for self-censorship because you don't care if people were to oust you because of what you said. Yet humans need that feeling of belonging which I think is best reserved for people closest in your life. You can shrug off a lot of thoughts when it comes to your spouse, your kids, or good friends -- thoughts that you could defend and question till the end in principle, but because principles are merely mental tools you know you can afford to shrug off a few of them as between you and these people you (hopefully) have something that goes beyond mere mental gymnastics.
- justsaysmthng 11y ago
  Thank you for the tip. Curiously, the original message sparked a lot of commentary and it seems like lots of people here are feeling the pain of "unjust" moderation sometimes. Sometimes I also play the "fuck it, let them mod me down, I'll just say it" game - I expect to be buried and that's fine -(although people tend to heavily up vote maverick comments). But sometimes modding takes me by complete surprise - "Wtf, why did I they mod me down?".. For some reason, I tend to internalize negative feedback from random strangers a lot more than I internalize the positive feedback.. And I feel like I'm not the only one doing this, which is a bit of a relief :). But my original comment wasn't necessarily a complaint about the status quo here on HN - some hiccups aside, it's still the most civilized and wise forum online.. What worries me is that we still haven't figured the public forum thing out and some versions of it are plain dangerous (eg. forums on certain news websites tend to degenerate into racism, hatred, bigotry, etc). The up/down vote paradigm seems to have reached it's peak, we need a new way to collectively filter thoughts.
nickbauman 11y ago
Groups will always enforce group-think especially as they age. Clay Shirky covers this extremely well. http://www.shirky.com/writings/herecomeseverybody/group_enemy.html http://www.shirky.com/writings/herecomeseverybody/group_enem...
iolothebard 11y ago
Try the new kinder friendlier SJW reddit. I'd been on there since 2005. They can go sit on a rusty nail.
- sudojudo 11y ago
  Reddit is hardly a haven for social justice. Them purging hateful subbreddits had more to do with revenue than appeasing "feminazis", more evidence of this is in the changed post ranking algorithm and the hiding of the up/downvote counter. They were desperate for greater monetization when all of this happened; Reddit is a business, not a charity, and its user base has been booming exponentially over the last few years. Compared to the past (pre-2010) Reddit has become increasingly politically incorrect. Go read top comments on posts about Muslim immigrants, or black crime, or women in tech and you'll get it confused with 4chan. There's no discussion, just vitriol, and any opposition is downvoted into oblivion. I started frequenting the site sometime in 2007, because the layout was more appealing than Slashdot's (still is), and the vibe was similar, but I just can't stomach the discussions within Reddit defaults anymore. Not sure if it's simply Eternal September, but Reddit is no longer a progressive, free-thinking, forum for nerds; it's not even close.
frik 11y ago
Some companies game the voting system on HN. You only need a few/dozens accounts with 2000+ karma to create group thinking by down-voting non-popular opinions that may harm the reputation of the company. We can regularly see this behaviour from a certain company from Redmond, their news on HN are heavily "moderated", and "not so great" news about them get flagged from the HN frontpage in no time and at the same time they release another "nice" news blurb that gets many votes in seconds. The HN users were more in favor of the competition, and since Build'15 a swamp of new HN accounts got created to form the opinion about new products, and give them a positive spin while on the same time hide and downvote all true comments about the evil spy features of their OS v10 and their other newer products that cannot be turned off by end consumers. HN needs more logging to detect such coordinated (down-)voting rings to avoid group thinking and opinion shaping orchestrated by bad players.
js8 11y ago
> This is my 3rd HN account - I've abandoned the others (with lots of karma on them) specifically as a protest for (what I thought were) valid opinions being down voted and dismissed. Hi there from my 2nd account! I have also abandoned about 1K points of karma, because I thought I should censor myself less and care less about it. Surprisingly, I didn't get downvoted as much as I expected. Lot of comments I make and consider really silly get high karma, and yet other my comments which I consider to be a really good points are sitting there with 1. The moderation system seems quite random. I think the big problem of modern moderation systems is the fleeting nature of all those discussions. Having a persistent discussion about a topic is difficult. I think something like Wiki or Stackoverflow works, but only to an extent.

fweespee_ch 11y ago

> I often find myself self-censoring or abandoning the comment halfway, because I know it will get down voted and it's just a waste of time. Please don't, it is just karma. > Which brings me to the thought: If one of the most intelligent and open minded online communities can exhibit censorship or can determine users to self-censor, then what can be said about other communities/platforms ? I think its an example of a problem that is difficult to solve because you want to surface the content that makes the majority happy which becomes naturally self reinforcing. That said, I'd like to see a platform that surfaces heavily downvoted content that received some upvotes as a hybrid with purely upvoted content. [e.g. +70, -100 is a comment probably worth ranking at +35 because the downvote/upvote split is likely opinion-based rather than purely factual]

Grishnakh 11y ago
It is not "just karma". This isn't Reddit. On here, low karma means you can't downvote (while higher-karma people can, so they can use that to suppress the opinions of the low-karma people), which effectively makes you a second-class citizen here. Even worse, if the mods disagree strongly with your post, they'll happily detach it (so no one else can see it) and threaten to ban you.
- fweespee_ch 11y ago
  It is to me. I've got ~9 HN accounts over 1k and I cycle to a new one every so often because that is how little I care about the features that karma-gated. If you take HN seriously enough to care, ummm, why? No offense but this place largely acts like a more technically sophisticated Reddit with everything from downvoting factual statements to upvoting provably false opinion. That doesn't include the inherent bias in the design towards YC companies and so forth.
  - Grishnakh 11y ago
    How long have you been on here? I've been on here a few months I think, and I'm just a little over 400. I'm still a long way from 1000, and that's just one account. So to me, karma is pretty important; AFAIC, I'm just a second-class citizen here at this point. I do agree about your comparison to Reddit. Honestly, if my workplace didn't block Reddit, I probably wouldn't spend much time here.
    - fweespee_ch 11y ago
      > How long have you been on here? This account got over 300 karma in 20 days. ~60-90 days is how long it usually takes me to hit 1000+. On and off since 2010. If you want, I could probably give you one of my 1000+ accounts. I'm not sure if that is against the guidelines tho. I suppose I could email dang. xD
  - ionforce 11y ago
    Why do you care to care so little? Why not just stick to one account?

JoeAltmaier 11y ago

I'd encourage you to stop 'self-censoring'. What matters a few karma points, if you have something important to say? You'll find that often an initial knee-jerk downvoting can turn around half a day later, as more considerate users join the conversation.

p4wnc6 11y ago
I disagree. I have sometimes faced reply comments that are quite unreasonable and at times meant solely as insult. It's very rare here, but still a risk. But what's far worse is that the moderation of Hacker News functions with very little transparency. Even just Googling for the moderator `dang` turns up a lot of angry rants on other blogs and in other sections of the internet, full of people who feel wronged by black-box and one-sided moderation. It can be quite psychologically upsetting to post a comment, fall victim to group-think downvoting, try to add clarity or try to defend yourself against unreasonable comments, and then find yourself on the non-negotiable end of a black-box moderation action. If it was just meaningless karma downvotes, few would care. It's the actually hurtful responses and, there's no other way to put it, mean-spirited moderation activity that give pause. And I'm speaking as someone with a lot of anti-authoritarian tendencies. I'm not shy at all about speaking my mind and I struggle with finding a way to feign respect for authority apparatuses that are not legitimate, like HN moderation. If I feel this apprehension and backlash, I can only imagine that more timid readers feel it to a much more damaging degree.
- dhimes 11y ago
  I had no idea this kind of thing happened. I've never seen it (and known what I was looking at anyway). I have, however, looked at some hellbanned accounts to see what caused the hellbanning and sometimes it's not apparent- that is, replies that aren't particularly insulting or vapid or anything obviously antisocial. I figured they were banned for some other reason- like sneaking advertisements in or something (that are now removed).
  - DanBC 11y ago
    Sometimes accounts get caught in an accidental hellban. In that case (if you've gone through the history and can't find anything obvious) you might want to email dang to let him know, or email the person to let them know. Or you could vouch for the person's posts. I think enough vouching would mean the account becomes unbanned? (Of course, this is just my opinion. I have no idea if it's true.)

elviejo 11y ago

Other topics to avoid Anything negative about: Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Ruby, Rails, Github, Vim and Javascript.

ywecur 11y ago

I couldn't agree more. I'm not sure how to solve the problem though, other than trying to teach people to treat the down vote button more respectfully. IMO there shouldn't be a down vote button at all, and to be honest I can't see its purpose. If a comment is trolling or being aggressive then you should flag it, so where is there room for the down vote button? It becomes quite intuitive to just use it for what you consider an "invalid opinion" regardless of how much you try to teach people otherwise, because it's so convenient to use and people are less rational when they are angered.

ars 11y ago
The downvote button is supposed to be for non-constructive (i.e. stupid/useless) or offtopic messages. Flag is for spam and very very inflammatory stuff. It is NOT supposed to be used for incorrect messages! (Or at least, if the message is grey, don't keep downvoting it just because there is a mistake in it. One downvote is enough.) And most especially it is not for disagreeing with someone - that's what the reply button is for. Too many people come here from reddit with the mentality that downvote is for disagreement.
- kup0 11y ago
  I think the mentality that downvote = disagreement is widespread on any site with a karma/voting mechanism. Many subreddits themselves say right in the sidebar (and often elsewhere) that "downvote only if something is off-topic or does not contribute to discussion", but everyone still tends to use it that way. So I think the issue is somewhat bigger than reddit or HN or even just a certain slice of users. It seems to be a fundamental problem in understanding up/down votes. Maybe psychologically we're inclined to downvote when we disagree, whether consciously or not. I am also guilty of this even though I know better. It's hard to resist downvoting something I disagree with. It's like a natural response I have to actively work against. Edits: grammar / clarifying wording
  - ywecur 11y ago
    My theory is that it's because it's to convenient. A solution could be to move it to next to the flag button, maybe? And also making it a bit more difficult to do, like requiring the user to input a reason.

bcoates 11y ago

I think this is where the "community" metaphor breaks down; HN is not the equivalent of a civilization where a thousand flowers need to bloom to preserve the intellectual integrity of society; it is the equivalent of the club you shouldn't join if they'd have you as a member. The problem is not that people self-segregate into (multiple) communities where there is a common creed as to what ideas are worthy of discussion; the problem is when there is a suffocating universal consensus where there are ideas that have no home. There is no (useful) better, more open-minded community; there are just places where you can say things you shouldn't say on HN and vice versa. There's nothing wrong with circlej-rks as long as every jerk has a circle.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

ars 11y ago

If you don't have a bunch of heavily downmodded comments then you are doing it wrong. Wear them as a badge of honor, that you speak your mind.

BasDirks 11y ago

Besides the ones you mentioned, are there other such topics that tend to be taboo? I would like to keep an eye out, just for curiosity's sake. I don't know if high intelligence within a group bodes well for freedom of ideas. Intelligence itself is a form of censorship.

gdwatson 11y ago
Socially conservative views often get downvoted, but it seems to depend heavily on the thread. Whether it's a function of a given thread's topic or its participants is hard to say. The discussions of Brendan Eich's appointment and resignation contain lots of examples.

Kenji 11y ago

I am not sure if the HN community is intelligent and open-minded or if it's just filled with people who usually think like I do and are close-minded.

justsaysmthng 11y ago
Your comment is a good example. People here are willing to look at things from various angles and question things, while being respectful towards each other.

kirykl 11y ago

Maybe there's something to be said that the users with downvote ability have earned enough karma through upvotes. The community determines in this way that the only ones that can silence others are those with majority valued opinions

ikawe 11y ago
I really like discourse's stance on this which also gives points to users for reading posts. It's the lurkers who only give input when it's compelling and thought out that I want to hear from, vs jerks like me that spout their opinion on everything.

eternalban 11y ago

> even this community suffers from this strange phenomena of "group think" There is absolutely no social cost for downvoting without commenting. Adding costs and accountability: - force comment box on downvotes - deduct from karma - flagging only Is it important for HN's community to have a "psychologically safe" [1] at this point in time? I can not think of a more critical time for the "STEM" crowd to have a viable forum of discussion. Topics ranging from the expected behavior of tall steel structures subject to excessive heat (ahem), to digital rights, cryto, crypto-currency, voting systems, genetics, AI, ..., can all benefit from informed discussion and debate. HN membership, considering the depth and range observed, is entirely capable of this. [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learn... -- remember this one, HN?

ywecur 11y ago
Adding to this: Replace the down vote icon completely with the flagging icon, as the down vote icon probably encourages aggravated people to use it in the wrong way.
- striking 11y ago
  HN rules don't say anything about the "wrong way" to use the downvote button. If anything, we're encouraged to use it in the way we feel is best.
  - lotharbot 11y ago
    in the past, pg has used the analogy that upvotes are not only for civility, so downvotes aren't restricted only to incivility. My own personal guideline: upvote = "I would like more comments like this" and downvote = "I would like less comments like this". My reason for wanting less comments of a particular type can be a lot of things -- incivility, factual incorrectness, being off-topic or distracting, being technically correct but misleading, or even being repetitive in relation to prior comments that already made the same point better.

erichocean 11y ago

I do the same on HN (self-censor, constantly) and have come to peace with it. I don't submit over 80% of the HN posts I write, and I immediately delete anything that gets one down vote. Furthermore, if I do post something that gets a down vote, I update my "don't post" probabilities to match, meaning I post even less. I'd encourage you to try and not feel bad about the situation. It's not your job to provide insight or knowledge to others, or even just plain old participation. If you don't like the response you get, just keep doing what you're doing: don't post. It's their loss. P.s. If this comment gets down-voted, which my filters tell me is "highly likely", I'll just leave this P.s. comment instead of doing a full delete like I usually do. Hopefully you'll have read it by then. :)

jandrese 11y ago
I on the other hand assume that random downvotes are part of the system and don't worry about them overly much. I also don't check on my post history except to see if there are replies to my comments. I have been kicked out of online communities for not aligning with the groupthink, but I tend to see that as a positive for me in the long run. If I'm so disliked by a community then I'm not going to force it. I one angered a guy so much he made up some random bullshit about me being a pedo and the mods bought it hook line and sinker. I decided that any place where the mods will ban you and never even respond to or probably even read your appeals is not worth the effort. That said, I don't go looking for fights. I'm not going to register a StormFront account anytime soon because everything I might say on there would just cause arguments and strife. Be an adult and stand by your opinions. Other people may disagree, but that's life. Sometimes you may even be wrong and change your mind later, but that's also life. The situation may also change and invalidate your old opinion. Most importantly don't be a dick.
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  The problem is that karma is all-important on this site, and ends up creating different social strata, and a feedback mechanism which is what these other posters are complaining about. On Reddit, for example, it really doesn't matter if you get a few downvotes. Your post is still visible, and you still have the ability to up or downvote anyone else. You are not a lesser member of the community on that site when you get some downvotes. On here, you are. The system is explicitly designed to make it an echo chamber. If you have low karma, you can't downvote people, you can't post very much, and there are probably other more subtle ways they punish you for having low karma. So it's absolutely to your advantage, if you want to be a member of this "community" and actually have your posts seen and commented on so you can participate in useful and interesting discussion, to self-censor.

nsns 11y ago

Well, a community needs certain borders to become one; these may be implicit, but they certainly exist here. What's special in this forum, imo, is the level of discussion and the willingness to listen carefully and to react thoughtfully, and not its realization of some utopian ideal freedom (which probably would have destroyed it as a community). Yet again, an online community is obviously not a nation-state: one has chosen voluntarily and consciously to participate in it, and could always decide to leave and go elsewhere.

guessbest 11y ago

HN is just aggressively positive. I miss Slashdot. I liked that it had people who had industry knowledge who would post as an Anonymous Coward to correct someone who was being idealistic. I don't know where those people have gone, but it is certainly not here. They probably were dispersed to other sites.

Grishnakh 11y ago
Yep, Slashdot used to be great like that. Those people are gone now. They're not on SoylentNews, and there's sure as hell not on here. I don't think they're on Reddit either. They're not anywhere. My guess: they've retired from tech after getting tired of all the BS and nasty personalities, and done something entirely different with their lives. Maybe they took their savings and moved to Costa Rica and opened a restaurant on the beach.
- marcosdumay 11y ago
  They are probably everywhere, but we lose their insight when they can't post as anonymous or it is hard to do so. Pseudonyms just won't cut it. Anyway, we also lose a great deal of spammers, trolls and just disturbing people. That's the other side of the coin.
  - r00fus 11y ago
    I see a lot of throwaway accounts here post interesting stuff - clearly like anon. Slashdot incurs a large cost (noise) in allowing anon comments - depending on who you ask, the moderation system either barely keeps that in check, or is completely insufficient.

clumsysmurf 11y ago

> If one of the most intelligent and open minded online communities can exhibit censorship or can determine users to self-censor, then what can be said about other communities/platforms ? Climate researchers are also self censoring, but for slightly different reasons. Given the stakes, its also an interesting case study. "In several important respects the modelling community is self-censoring its research to conform to the dominant political and economic paradigm" http://www.fdsd.org/what-we-are-reading/duality-in-climate-science-kevin-anderson/ http://www.fdsd.org/what-we-are-reading/duality-in-climate-s...

akamaka 11y ago

I looked at your comment history, and I don't think you got downvoted because of your opinions. It's more likely a matter of writing style. The folks here like efficient communication and concise, well thought-out arguments. Some of your long comments are more along the lines of Socratic self-debates where you are thinking through a subject in detail. There's nothing wrong with it, but it just doesn't fit the medium. HN is great for sharing insights on the news of the day, but not conducive to in-depth intellectual engagements.

justsaysmthng 11y ago
Thanks for the analysis :) I've been around for many years here on HN. I tend to change my password to something random from time to time, so I don't get too attached to my karma, burning man style. It helps. I don't think there's a fixed HN style for comments. Some people like flash comments and replies, some people enjoy longer, more thoughtful conversations. I guess it depends on the article/subject. I tend to be a slow thinker and a slow writer and apart from their length, I also spend a lot of time writing them. But once again, thanks for taking the time and maybe next time I'll remember to keep it shorter and to the point :).
despinozist 11y ago
Sounds like you're describing me.

Taek 11y ago

Anonymity often brings relief to people who weight otherwise self-censor. 4chan is a really good example of this. Though it's got a terrible SNR, the peak signal is actually really high and sometimes you see really intelligent discussions about taboo topics like incest, furrydom, and racism. The anonymity allows people to state beliefs that simply wouldn't be acceptable anywhere else. Maybe HN should have an 'anonymous' feature for accounts above a certain karma that allows a post to be made with no username attached, and no effect on karma. Behind the scenes, admins can still issue bans for unacceptable comments but the opinion gets protected from the groupthink.

dandrews 11y ago
Rather than an "anonymous feature", how about a "please moderate this post" flag? A post that requests moderation would not be eligible for upvotes or downvotes, or would even appear until it passed moderation. Of course, that means added work for the mods, or a new class of moderators altogether.
lazzlazzlazz 11y ago
I am often stunned at how eloquent some conversations are on 4chan, and am dismayed when I realize this is because anonymity allows us to be truthful without the baggage of reputation and consequences of controversy - which is how we make progress. We must never lose our ability to remain anonymous when necessary.
- lake99 11y ago
  > I am often stunned at how eloquent some conversations are on 4chan Can you show me some examples? I tried browsing 4chan, but the site's navigation trips me up badly.
  - Joof 11y ago
    4chans posts are deleted after some time. And its at least 90% horrible garbage. Yes, some very smart people go there and some very intelligent discussions occur sometimes. I wish you luck!

yason 11y ago

I don't really care enough to self-censor and I often play a game of negative karma with myself here. To motivate myself to finish the comment I know won't be taken well in the average I first remind myself that the point of my comment isn't to cater to the consensus of the majority of the HN crowd but the reason I started writing it was because I felt something needed to be said and if there is one other person who finds my comment valuable, I have succeeded regardless of everything else. Secondly, in entering the game of negative karma I expect downvotes with the idea that the more I get the more sure I am I did strike the right chord there. It doesn't always work and I get a wave of upvotes instead, but you get the idea. I rarely look back except when my karma changes a lot overnight which is when I might take a look at what happened. Note that I don't, or at least I don't intend to, troll, insult, or talk off-topic in order to hog downvotes for my game. The downvotes themselves aren't the goal: I just consider them an indicator of success when writing a comment I'm pretty sure I won't be getting many upvotes either. It's like targetting controversy. Ideally, I aim to make remarks that question the status quo or find blind spots in collective assumptions. To close, I'm thinking about your question in the end. I think that self-censorship is about the need to belong. If you're an independent individualist you have no need for self-censorship because you don't care if people were to oust you because of what you said. Yet humans need that feeling of belonging which I think is best reserved for people closest in your life. You can shrug off a lot of thoughts when it comes to your spouse, your kids, or good friends -- thoughts that you could defend and question till the end in principle, but because principles are merely mental tools you know you can afford to shrug off a few of them as between you and these people you (hopefully) have something that goes beyond mere mental gymnastics.

justsaysmthng 11y ago
Thank you for the tip. Curiously, the original message sparked a lot of commentary and it seems like lots of people here are feeling the pain of "unjust" moderation sometimes. Sometimes I also play the "fuck it, let them mod me down, I'll just say it" game - I expect to be buried and that's fine -(although people tend to heavily up vote maverick comments). But sometimes modding takes me by complete surprise - "Wtf, why did I they mod me down?".. For some reason, I tend to internalize negative feedback from random strangers a lot more than I internalize the positive feedback.. And I feel like I'm not the only one doing this, which is a bit of a relief :). But my original comment wasn't necessarily a complaint about the status quo here on HN - some hiccups aside, it's still the most civilized and wise forum online.. What worries me is that we still haven't figured the public forum thing out and some versions of it are plain dangerous (eg. forums on certain news websites tend to degenerate into racism, hatred, bigotry, etc). The up/down vote paradigm seems to have reached it's peak, we need a new way to collectively filter thoughts.

nickbauman 11y ago

Groups will always enforce group-think especially as they age. Clay Shirky covers this extremely well. http://www.shirky.com/writings/herecomeseverybody/group_enemy.html http://www.shirky.com/writings/herecomeseverybody/group_enem...

iolothebard 11y ago

Try the new kinder friendlier SJW reddit. I'd been on there since 2005. They can go sit on a rusty nail.

sudojudo 11y ago
Reddit is hardly a haven for social justice. Them purging hateful subbreddits had more to do with revenue than appeasing "feminazis", more evidence of this is in the changed post ranking algorithm and the hiding of the up/downvote counter. They were desperate for greater monetization when all of this happened; Reddit is a business, not a charity, and its user base has been booming exponentially over the last few years. Compared to the past (pre-2010) Reddit has become increasingly politically incorrect. Go read top comments on posts about Muslim immigrants, or black crime, or women in tech and you'll get it confused with 4chan. There's no discussion, just vitriol, and any opposition is downvoted into oblivion. I started frequenting the site sometime in 2007, because the layout was more appealing than Slashdot's (still is), and the vibe was similar, but I just can't stomach the discussions within Reddit defaults anymore. Not sure if it's simply Eternal September, but Reddit is no longer a progressive, free-thinking, forum for nerds; it's not even close.

frik 11y ago

Some companies game the voting system on HN. You only need a few/dozens accounts with 2000+ karma to create group thinking by down-voting non-popular opinions that may harm the reputation of the company. We can regularly see this behaviour from a certain company from Redmond, their news on HN are heavily "moderated", and "not so great" news about them get flagged from the HN frontpage in no time and at the same time they release another "nice" news blurb that gets many votes in seconds. The HN users were more in favor of the competition, and since Build'15 a swamp of new HN accounts got created to form the opinion about new products, and give them a positive spin while on the same time hide and downvote all true comments about the evil spy features of their OS v10 and their other newer products that cannot be turned off by end consumers. HN needs more logging to detect such coordinated (down-)voting rings to avoid group thinking and opinion shaping orchestrated by bad players.

js8 11y ago

> This is my 3rd HN account - I've abandoned the others (with lots of karma on them) specifically as a protest for (what I thought were) valid opinions being down voted and dismissed. Hi there from my 2nd account! I have also abandoned about 1K points of karma, because I thought I should censor myself less and care less about it. Surprisingly, I didn't get downvoted as much as I expected. Lot of comments I make and consider really silly get high karma, and yet other my comments which I consider to be a really good points are sitting there with 1. The moderation system seems quite random. I think the big problem of modern moderation systems is the fleeting nature of all those discussions. Having a persistent discussion about a topic is difficult. I think something like Wiki or Stackoverflow works, but only to an extent.