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I think news.yc has a 5th troll behavior and it's down modding a comment because they disagree with it. I have been down modded a number of times not for saying

I think news.yc has a 5th troll behavior and it's down modding a comment because they disagree with it. I have been down modded a number of times not for saying something rude or stupid just something that others don't agree with. I tend to down mod rude and aggressive people on here and I also up mod people who I think have been down modded unfairly. I am not sure if I am alone with my way of thinking.

immad 19y ago
We shouldn't down mod things we disagree with?
- cawel 19y ago
  I guess it's a matter of pertinence. Comments supporting a constructive conversation should be uppmodded (which does not mean it's comments you agree with). Or comments you want others to pay attention to (diluting uninteresting ones by extension). Like in this thread, we can note the irony (and worshiping) of the community, with the top comment (11 points so far) done by anewaccountname, deliberately taking a piss out of PG's essay.
  - aston 19y ago
    Actually, there's no way a comment like anewaccountname's would get upmodded to that extent were it not a verbatim reference to pg's previous article. The fact that people here upmod/downmod based on whether they agree rather than whether it's insightful really bothers me. I think it's the wrong incentive structure.
    - timr 19y ago
      The first comment was funny, though. Yes, if you want to pick it apart, it was funny because it was a verbatim reference to the earlier article, but it was funny nonetheless. Likewise, it was funny that the "Funny..." comment was modded to -1. At least, I found it funny. Point being, I don't think these were rewards for groupthink, so much as rewards for geeks being clever.
      - bishopdante 18y ago
        It's really interesting the idea of being able to tag posts with a rating which describes their quality, such as "annoying" "boring" "funny" or "relevant" rather than just plus minus some points.
- curi 19y ago
  You should refute mistaken ideas with better ideas. If you want to downmod, it's no big deal. But there seems to be some proportion of the audience that feels vindicated in their views just because the opposite view was downmodded. Downmodding does not make opposing positions less legitimate. These people seem to be different than the ones who write replies. I've had multiple lengthy threads where I hardly get any mods either way while discussing, and then when I wake up the next day I have -20 karma, but no new replies.
- jey 19y ago
  I think karma should be used as an indicator of the quality of the post, not as a reward for groupthink.
- DanielBMarkham 19y ago
  Because nobody cares whether you agree or disagree with anything. I'm expecting the score to represent _my_ feelings about the article after I read it, not yours. I could go down a longer list: because mob rules is a not-so-good policy for quality reading material, because if one group votes on agreement and another group votes on quality then the agreement group "drowns out" the quality group, because it takes about 2 seconds to determine whether you agree with something, whereas determining if something is worth reading takes a lot longer (and is more valuable information), etc. Note that I upmodded you, even though I take issue with your position. That's because you asked a good question. In another world, I'd just downmod you because I thought you were mistaken and for most readers the question would never have been asked (or answered)
pg 19y ago
I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness. It only becomes abuse when people resort to karma bombing: downvoting a lot of comments by one user without reading them in order to subtract maximum karma. Fortunately we now have several levels of software to protect against that.
- DarrenStuart 19y ago
  very true but I have seen valid responses down modded because of fanboyism and blindness to other views. I guess we don't always behave in a grown up way online. I am as guilty of that as the next guy.
  - DarrenStuart 19y ago
    lol the irony of being down modded for my last comment :p
    - curi 19y ago
      it's not necessarily ironic. maybe they didn't like how you used "grown up" to imply that children have the various bad traits you listed. which isn't a very reasonable or informative description of children.
      - DarrenStuart 19y ago
        I am sorry but you are twisting what I said there. I was meaning immature behavior which to quote the dictionary can mean "Marked by or suggesting a lack of normal maturity: silly, immature behavior." People often tell others acting like an ass to grow up. This has nothing to do with being an informative description of children and more to do with PG's troll post, now that is somewhat ironic :p
        curi 19y ago
benmathes 19y ago
The curt abruptness of hackers coupled with a tendency to mod down things that are perceived as wrong probably causes this.
mynameishere 19y ago
I think news.yc has a 5th troll behavior and it's down modding a comment because they disagree with it That's not a troll behavior ("troll" comes from the fishing term), and it's much less common here than on reddit or digg or (god help you) dailykos, where intelligent but unfashionable opinions get sunk hard. There are only a few fashionable subjects around here (the importance of lisp, for example), whereas on other sites almost every question has a boilerplate answer, against which all opposition is "trolling". At any rate, no amount of actual "trolling" is as bad as groupthink. I'd rather a whole parliament of disagreeable colicky horseradish farmers than one unipartisan politburo. ADDENDUM: Just thought I'd tack this on. Near the top of digg right now is this: http://digg.com/business_finance/What_1_Million_Buys_In_Homes_Across_The_U_S_3 http://digg.com/business_finance/What_1_Million_Buys_In_Home... That's sort of an interesting subject, but look at the comments. At the top with 9 diggs: I dugg the story, but I refuse to click on anything with Forbes magazine. They force a full-screen ad (that you can skip) but in my efforts to help stop obnoxious advertising, I boycott Forbes. Okay, there you have a 15-year-old combining 1) his irrational dislike of full-page ads (perhaps he thinks Forbes survives on government grants), with 2) his irrational proclivity to upmod things without looking at them, with 3) his belief that Forbes cares whether a 15-year-old looks at its slideshows. This sort of sad lameness is actually what kills online discussions, not "trolling".
- theoneill 19y ago
  I'd rather a whole parliament of disagreeable colicky horseradish farmers than one unipartisan politburo. Wow. That is the best sentence I have ever read in a comment thread.
zoltz 19y ago
Arc

immad 19y ago

We shouldn't down mod things we disagree with?

cawel 19y ago
I guess it's a matter of pertinence. Comments supporting a constructive conversation should be uppmodded (which does not mean it's comments you agree with). Or comments you want others to pay attention to (diluting uninteresting ones by extension). Like in this thread, we can note the irony (and worshiping) of the community, with the top comment (11 points so far) done by anewaccountname, deliberately taking a piss out of PG's essay.
- aston 19y ago
  Actually, there's no way a comment like anewaccountname's would get upmodded to that extent were it not a verbatim reference to pg's previous article. The fact that people here upmod/downmod based on whether they agree rather than whether it's insightful really bothers me. I think it's the wrong incentive structure.
  - timr 19y ago
    The first comment was funny, though. Yes, if you want to pick it apart, it was funny because it was a verbatim reference to the earlier article, but it was funny nonetheless. Likewise, it was funny that the "Funny..." comment was modded to -1. At least, I found it funny. Point being, I don't think these were rewards for groupthink, so much as rewards for geeks being clever.
    - bishopdante 18y ago
      It's really interesting the idea of being able to tag posts with a rating which describes their quality, such as "annoying" "boring" "funny" or "relevant" rather than just plus minus some points.
curi 19y ago
You should refute mistaken ideas with better ideas. If you want to downmod, it's no big deal. But there seems to be some proportion of the audience that feels vindicated in their views just because the opposite view was downmodded. Downmodding does not make opposing positions less legitimate. These people seem to be different than the ones who write replies. I've had multiple lengthy threads where I hardly get any mods either way while discussing, and then when I wake up the next day I have -20 karma, but no new replies.
jey 19y ago
I think karma should be used as an indicator of the quality of the post, not as a reward for groupthink.
DanielBMarkham 19y ago
Because nobody cares whether you agree or disagree with anything. I'm expecting the score to represent _my_ feelings about the article after I read it, not yours. I could go down a longer list: because mob rules is a not-so-good policy for quality reading material, because if one group votes on agreement and another group votes on quality then the agreement group "drowns out" the quality group, because it takes about 2 seconds to determine whether you agree with something, whereas determining if something is worth reading takes a lot longer (and is more valuable information), etc. Note that I upmodded you, even though I take issue with your position. That's because you asked a good question. In another world, I'd just downmod you because I thought you were mistaken and for most readers the question would never have been asked (or answered)

pg 19y ago

I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness. It only becomes abuse when people resort to karma bombing: downvoting a lot of comments by one user without reading them in order to subtract maximum karma. Fortunately we now have several levels of software to protect against that.

DarrenStuart 19y ago
very true but I have seen valid responses down modded because of fanboyism and blindness to other views. I guess we don't always behave in a grown up way online. I am as guilty of that as the next guy.
- DarrenStuart 19y ago
  lol the irony of being down modded for my last comment :p
  - curi 19y ago
    it's not necessarily ironic. maybe they didn't like how you used "grown up" to imply that children have the various bad traits you listed. which isn't a very reasonable or informative description of children.
    - DarrenStuart 19y ago
      I am sorry but you are twisting what I said there. I was meaning immature behavior which to quote the dictionary can mean "Marked by or suggesting a lack of normal maturity: silly, immature behavior." People often tell others acting like an ass to grow up. This has nothing to do with being an informative description of children and more to do with PG's troll post, now that is somewhat ironic :p
      - curi 19y ago

benmathes 19y ago

The curt abruptness of hackers coupled with a tendency to mod down things that are perceived as wrong probably causes this.

mynameishere 19y ago

I think news.yc has a 5th troll behavior and it's down modding a comment because they disagree with it That's not a troll behavior ("troll" comes from the fishing term), and it's much less common here than on reddit or digg or (god help you) dailykos, where intelligent but unfashionable opinions get sunk hard. There are only a few fashionable subjects around here (the importance of lisp, for example), whereas on other sites almost every question has a boilerplate answer, against which all opposition is "trolling". At any rate, no amount of actual "trolling" is as bad as groupthink. I'd rather a whole parliament of disagreeable colicky horseradish farmers than one unipartisan politburo. ADDENDUM: Just thought I'd tack this on. Near the top of digg right now is this: http://digg.com/business_finance/What_1_Million_Buys_In_Homes_Across_The_U_S_3 http://digg.com/business_finance/What_1_Million_Buys_In_Home... That's sort of an interesting subject, but look at the comments. At the top with 9 diggs: I dugg the story, but I refuse to click on anything with Forbes magazine. They force a full-screen ad (that you can skip) but in my efforts to help stop obnoxious advertising, I boycott Forbes. Okay, there you have a 15-year-old combining 1) his irrational dislike of full-page ads (perhaps he thinks Forbes survives on government grants), with 2) his irrational proclivity to upmod things without looking at them, with 3) his belief that Forbes cares whether a 15-year-old looks at its slideshows. This sort of sad lameness is actually what kills online discussions, not "trolling".

theoneill 19y ago
I'd rather a whole parliament of disagreeable colicky horseradish farmers than one unipartisan politburo. Wow. That is the best sentence I have ever read in a comment thread.

zoltz 19y ago

Arc