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> The civility here is often arrived at by burying comments that challenge this self-serving slant. This is where I have to disagree. I feel the civility comes

> The civility here is often arrived at by burying comments that challenge this self-serving slant. This is where I have to disagree. I feel the civility comes from swift and brutal downvotes of low effort contributions. If there's a pattern that I see amongst grey/flagged/dead comments is that they are most often off-topic and/or low effort. Not to say that groupthink doesn't exist or come into play, just that it's not the prevailing cause for burying comments. Well to me at least. After all, I'm just a single user that reads arbitrary threads, I have no data to reinforce my opinion.

whybroke 10y ago
I agree that vacuous comment are ruthless downvoted as they should be. But observations, even with high grade citations that criticize the libertarian narrative are also regularly down voted to oblivion. Likewise any criticism of Russia gets clobber very quickly no matter how much evidence is offered. [edit] likewise pointing out either of those two problems So yes, poor post are down voted very efficiently but there is still a genuine problem with downvoting to hide information that parties don't want spread.
- bmelton 10y ago
  I'm trying to figure out how "The city should be building affordable housing" is considered a libertarian ideal, and I can't get there from here. Can you help me understand why you feel that it is? I'm having an equally hard time finding the libertarian angle in the top comments to the other threads you referenced.
  - whybroke 10y ago
    It is not. Although the idea rent control benefits no one and that north American land ownership is unambiguously virtuous both are. Points I have objected to to his account's serious detriment. I can not fathom why you imply I make such claims about affordable housing although, even ridiculously untrue, it cleverly nullifies my complain doesn't it? But whether I personally eat babies or not does not change the problem I have pointed out. There is a problem that I and others have taken the time to point out, and rest assured if one person points it out, far more don't bother. So whether anyone wishes to address the problem or just downvote the complain itself is not really my concern. In the end the site is an advertisement for ycombinator and in practice it's really a question of how they want their organization perceived. I had assumed having NY Times articles that point out Russian interference in Swedish politics swiftly whooshed from the front page does not serve that end.
- smsm42 10y ago
  > Likewise any criticism of Russia gets clobber very quickly no matter how much evidence is offered That doesn't seem to be my experience - I've criticized Russia many times without any problem.
eevilspock 10y ago
By "bury" I mean more than "grey/flagged/dead". I also mean in terms of order on the page. When looking at rank order, groupthink is a large if not prevailing determinant, especially since HN applies a penalty for contentiousness (defined as lots of upvotes AND downvotes) to both articles, comments and users.
- sctb 10y ago
  > ...HN applies a penalty for contentiousness (defined as lots of upvotes AND downvotes) to both articles, comments and users. Unless I've misunderstood what you're saying, this simply isn't true.
  - eevilspock 10y ago
    I believe you so my bad. But I got this impression from my erroneous understanding of the flamewar detector which you reference in another comment, but also because I know a penalty was put on my account even though I rarely make comments that go negative, though I often make comments that clearly get a lot of up AND down votes (obvious as I see the net go up and down, e.g. my comment at the top of this subthread, for which I give you permission to post the up and down totals in reply publicly). Daniel cleared that penalty but I obviously "earned" it back, as is evident from how my comments are ranked. I suggested to Daniel back then that HN should let users with penalties know that they have them, and show them what earned those penalties so that they can adjust their behavior. Feedback loops only work when the user understands the feedback. He agreed. It’s also important for transparency. It isn’t very honest to show us our positive karma scores but also keep a separate negative karma hidden.

whybroke 10y ago

I agree that vacuous comment are ruthless downvoted as they should be. But observations, even with high grade citations that criticize the libertarian narrative are also regularly down voted to oblivion. Likewise any criticism of Russia gets clobber very quickly no matter how much evidence is offered. [edit] likewise pointing out either of those two problems So yes, poor post are down voted very efficiently but there is still a genuine problem with downvoting to hide information that parties don't want spread.

bmelton 10y ago
I'm trying to figure out how "The city should be building affordable housing" is considered a libertarian ideal, and I can't get there from here. Can you help me understand why you feel that it is? I'm having an equally hard time finding the libertarian angle in the top comments to the other threads you referenced.
- whybroke 10y ago
  It is not. Although the idea rent control benefits no one and that north American land ownership is unambiguously virtuous both are. Points I have objected to to his account's serious detriment. I can not fathom why you imply I make such claims about affordable housing although, even ridiculously untrue, it cleverly nullifies my complain doesn't it? But whether I personally eat babies or not does not change the problem I have pointed out. There is a problem that I and others have taken the time to point out, and rest assured if one person points it out, far more don't bother. So whether anyone wishes to address the problem or just downvote the complain itself is not really my concern. In the end the site is an advertisement for ycombinator and in practice it's really a question of how they want their organization perceived. I had assumed having NY Times articles that point out Russian interference in Swedish politics swiftly whooshed from the front page does not serve that end.
smsm42 10y ago
> Likewise any criticism of Russia gets clobber very quickly no matter how much evidence is offered That doesn't seem to be my experience - I've criticized Russia many times without any problem.

eevilspock 10y ago

By "bury" I mean more than "grey/flagged/dead". I also mean in terms of order on the page. When looking at rank order, groupthink is a large if not prevailing determinant, especially since HN applies a penalty for contentiousness (defined as lots of upvotes AND downvotes) to both articles, comments and users.

sctb 10y ago
> ...HN applies a penalty for contentiousness (defined as lots of upvotes AND downvotes) to both articles, comments and users. Unless I've misunderstood what you're saying, this simply isn't true.
- eevilspock 10y ago
  I believe you so my bad. But I got this impression from my erroneous understanding of the flamewar detector which you reference in another comment, but also because I know a penalty was put on my account even though I rarely make comments that go negative, though I often make comments that clearly get a lot of up AND down votes (obvious as I see the net go up and down, e.g. my comment at the top of this subthread, for which I give you permission to post the up and down totals in reply publicly). Daniel cleared that penalty but I obviously "earned" it back, as is evident from how my comments are ranked. I suggested to Daniel back then that HN should let users with penalties know that they have them, and show them what earned those penalties so that they can adjust their behavior. Feedback loops only work when the user understands the feedback. He agreed. It’s also important for transparency. It isn’t very honest to show us our positive karma scores but also keep a separate negative karma hidden.