4 ms·
Mmm, this answer is much better than mine because it uses the word alpha.
by capote 10y ago
Mmm, this answer is much better than mine because it uses the word alpha.
- capote 10y agoWow, this comment was just utterly buried. Why is it so terrible? I was being glib.
- capote 10y agoBuried again for asking why I was buried! Can I get a single response?
- dragonwriter 10y ago"Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- capote 10y agoI'd just like to know in English why my comments sucked, down voting or not.
- nitrogen 10y agoMy guess: it's not adding much to the conversation. HN tends to frown on humor that isn't intellectually and conversationally productive.
- capote 10y agoI resent this treatment. There are many comments on this website that aren't productive from many standpoints and they do no harm. Look at this whole topic for examples.
- hackuser 10y agocapote - Don't take it personally. I would read the guidelines; it's just the nature of this community and has been for a long time. If your comment won't contribute the conversation (in an intellectual sense) don't post it. Some people do post useless comments but generally they are voted down; also, the standard is not the worst comments.
- capote 10y agoThanks for the level-headed verbal answer. I guess I just feel like a downvote is a slap, rather than a more appropriate simple response that states the issue, or just being ignored. Slaps should be for when people are offensive/racist/rude/wrong--I understand my comment contributed nothing, but why would I get the same treatment as someone who contributes negatively? Shouldn't we be aiming for positivity => upvote, negativity => downvote, neutrality => no vote?
- hackuser 10y ago> I guess I just feel like a downvote is a slap It's not; that's all I can say. I've gotten plenty of them. Note that nobody else knows the score of your comment unless it's < 1. > why would I get the same treatment as someone who contributes negatively FWIW, comments that don't contribute do have a negative impact. They encourage more of the same, reducing signal-to-noise. The behavior spreads like a virus. This link may explain some of the ideas behind how HN works: http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html I hope that helps! Stick around; it's just a different culture with a different agenda.
- iihyrrppp 10y agoI worry that if we expand the definition of acceptable humor on HN, then HN would become something more like reddit. Not that reddit is bad, but I appreciate that the expectation here is to hold comments to a strict standard. Humor is allowed of course, and sometimes it's highly upvoted, but it tends to be humor that is on topic (and so usually about tech or the tech industry) and also as a part of personal stories. People especially have their guard up here because this thread is tangentially related to politics. And like anywhere else, you have to make the right joke for the room, as in your joke needs to be somewhat harmonious with the mindset of the majority (especially if it's off topic, not related to tech, or inflammatory).
- jlarocco 10y agoBecause your posts are boring and aren't contributing anything. Nobody cares that your comments got downvoted, so why waste everybody's time talking about it? I think your initial reply to spb was downvoted because it came off as sarcastic sour grapes that somebody had answered the question better than you.
- capote 10y agoLikewise to the first part, but you're terribly rude in addition to being boring. For what it's worth, I didn't mean to come off as sarcastic or sour; just attempting to compliment the better answer with some lighthearted humor directed at myself for not understanding the vocabulary.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dang 10y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11965054 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11965054 and marked it off-topic.