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Why do people downmod Jason's post? Disagreeing is not a reason for downmodding. I was interested in his response, whatever it might be. I want to judge for mys
by jwr 17y ago
Why do people downmod Jason's post? Disagreeing is not a reason for downmodding. I was interested in his response, whatever it might be. I want to judge for myself.
- ohashi 17y agoI think people judged with their votes.
- demallien 17y agoBecause the post is positively oozing insincerity, and most of us here value honesty?
- swombat 17y agoIrrelevant. That's not what voting is for. I've upvoted every one of Jason's posts, not because I agree with them, but because downvoting is for something else.
- whyleyc 17y agoWhat do you consider grounds for a down-vote then ? (this is sincere question)
- swombat 17y agoTwo possibilities: 1) In the case of obvious trolling or idiocy, e.g. "lol your mom sucks" or "ur dumb", downvoting below zero is warranted because those comments are stuff that we don't want to see at all. 2) In the case of everything else, downvoting is warranted, imho, only when something has been upvoted beyond where it should be. For example, if Jason's posts were at 50 upvotes, I would downvote them, because that's totally unwarranted. In this case, I'd downvote them even at 10 points... they're relevant because of who he is and how he's connected to this, but not that insightful. Basically, for all non-troll posts, you should upvote/downvote based on whether you feel the post has the points it deserves, and generally never downvote below zero. In this case, Jason, although controversial, is not an obvious stupid troll - he's responding to points that people are making. I would like to see his posts somewhere between 1 and 5 points, rather than at -4.
- whyleyc 17y agoThanks for the explanation of how you decide. I guess since there are no explicit references in the HN guidelines it's up to each user to make his or her mind up themselves.
- jon_dahl 17y agoI look at HN voting in the same way. If you upvote what you agree with and downvote what you don't, you end up with Reddit, where "lolz your mom" gets +12 and reasoned disagreement ends up -30. I actually end up upvoting a lot of <1 point comments, even ones I disagree with. If the comment is reasonably coherent and not trolling, it usually shouldn't be below 1.
- bad_user 17y agoIt's not for you to decide what down-voting is for. Some people don't like lies, other people don't like off-topic posts, other people don't like fallacies, and other people just don't have time to write a disagreement post ... especially if the assertions made in the down-voted comment aren't worth bothering with. And if down-voting should have a purpose ... then it should definitely be for filtering out people not in HN's demographic.
- jon_dahl 17y agoAnd if down-voting should have a purpose ... then it should definitely be for filtering out people not in HN's demographic. That might be true for people who want to use HN to talk about politics or religion, but Jason is definitely in our demographic. He's a web startup founder, whether or not his startup sucks.
- dschobel 17y agoExcept his posts all get a reflexive down-vote to -4. I don't see the point, obviously the discussion here is better for his defending himself. Give the guy some credit for showing up in front of the firing squad and trying to defend himself. Or we can turn this into a complete echo chamber where we can all bad-mouth Jason in absentia.
- krtl 17y agoI guess people feel like he doesn't deserve credit.
- jasonmcalacanis 17y agobecause they are Jason Haters.... Jayters. there are a group of them who down vote everything i post... doesn't matter how insightful... TEN DOWN VOTES!! it's kind of funny.
- samd 17y agoAll the downvoting actually makes finding and reading your comments in a post a lot easier. Just look for the faded blocks of text in the sea of dark letters.
- die_sekte 17y ago"Hey! There is nothing wrong with what I do or what I say! It's those bad haters!"
- niyazpk 17y agoI did not downvote your comment even though your comment sounded insincere and provocative. I did not down-vote because it was already low on points. I think most HN-ers hate downvoting. there are a group of them who down vote everything i post... doesn't matter how insightful... I don't have much experience in the industry other than reading a few blogs and even I could not spot any insights in most of your past comments in HN (especially the ones from the SEOmoz debate). Anyway, I've got more important things to attend to at 1AM than Daniel extortion plot fall out. Really? This is enough to piss off anyone who read it. As far as I can understand you forwarded a private email. You have more important things to do than attending to things you screwed up? I can't understand what is so insightful in that. (Good that you apologized to Daniel. Kudos)
- jasonmcalacanis 17y agohttp://bit.ly/peacenlove http://bit.ly/peacenlove
- whyleyc 17y ago"Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." From http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- twinwing 17y agoI just had a 40 minute bike shed moment thanks to this question. How else would you indicate strong disagreement with a comment given the HN culture of well thought out replies and a zero cost binary device for weighing in on an issue, when you have nothing else to contribute other than "I disagree"/"I do not like your post"?
- neilk 17y agoUpvote the commenter who makes the point you wanted to make. If no one else says it, you say it. For instance, I upvoted Calcanis' comment (to rescue it from negative number territory) and upvoted the people who pointed out the insincerity / inconsistency. Both kinds of posts advanced the general knowledge. I didn't have to upvote the more personal attacks on Calcanis. But it did feel pretty good. ;)
- poutine 17y agoAgreed, regardless of whether you disagree with him or not, his post is quite topical to this article.
- awa 17y agoI was also interested in his replies, but it seems he has a different answer ready for the HN crowd and different one for the world as pointed by his tweets linked by jfarmer. For me, changing a statement like this is pretty close to lying and is probably worse than trolling.
- krtl 17y agoThen you should judge and upvote his post. Please do not tell people how to vote -- that itself is judging. Users are given the ability to upvote or downvote and the community should see that through. Its always interesting to me how many people jump in and try to establish rules on upvoting and downvoting. I'm sorry but every member of this community should upvote and downvote as they please.