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This is me, as a "normal" user of HN, not reading this article because every time I make any critiques of HN I'm down-voted or told I just don't get the communi

This is me, as a "normal" user of HN, not reading this article because every time I make any critiques of HN I'm down-voted or told I just don't get the community. But to those of you who engage, I wish you the best of luck.

bArray 10y ago
Exactly, the standard of not being able to make criticism of HN or suggesting improvements. It's automatically the fault of the sugestee.
whybroke 10y ago
I recently had about a dozen old posts silently downvoted without comment because I linked to a wikipedia article about marginal utility which apparently deeply annoyed an ideologe. So the de facto workings of the site make me wear downvotes with pride.
- throwaway98237 10y ago
  Me too! If my comment is up-voted then down-voted then up-voted then down-voted, I know that I've said something that people have different thoughts on, and I know I hit on something. Other times I get down-vote, down-vote, down-vote, just like I thought I would, and am totally happy to take that hit. I put out such comments sometimes knowing they go against the HN grain, and consider the karma-cost as my way of giving back to the community, keeping it honest.
  - throwaway98237 10y ago
    And I just got an anonymous down-vote. Love it.
krapp 10y ago
Who cares about being upvoted or downvoted on Hacker News? There are no guidelines or standards for voting, so there's no context to glean from it, unless a comment gets voted into near obscurity (those are usually objectively bad.) Karma is a meaningless number that tells you little about the quality of the person it's attached to. This forum is full of programmers, designers and UX engineers. There's nothing wrong with criticizing the site's layout or interface, that's a sign that you actually care about it.
- throwaway98237 10y ago
  If no one cares about being downvoted, why is it a thing... If it's a useless thing, why, is it, a thing..?
  - type0 10y ago
    As I noticed - it forces newcomers to stay away from reddit style commenting, also it moves down uninteresting and boring comments so that you can skip to read the bottom lines.

bArray 10y ago

Exactly, the standard of not being able to make criticism of HN or suggesting improvements. It's automatically the fault of the sugestee.

whybroke 10y ago

I recently had about a dozen old posts silently downvoted without comment because I linked to a wikipedia article about marginal utility which apparently deeply annoyed an ideologe. So the de facto workings of the site make me wear downvotes with pride.

throwaway98237 10y ago
Me too! If my comment is up-voted then down-voted then up-voted then down-voted, I know that I've said something that people have different thoughts on, and I know I hit on something. Other times I get down-vote, down-vote, down-vote, just like I thought I would, and am totally happy to take that hit. I put out such comments sometimes knowing they go against the HN grain, and consider the karma-cost as my way of giving back to the community, keeping it honest.
- throwaway98237 10y ago
  And I just got an anonymous down-vote. Love it.

krapp 10y ago

Who cares about being upvoted or downvoted on Hacker News? There are no guidelines or standards for voting, so there's no context to glean from it, unless a comment gets voted into near obscurity (those are usually objectively bad.) Karma is a meaningless number that tells you little about the quality of the person it's attached to. This forum is full of programmers, designers and UX engineers. There's nothing wrong with criticizing the site's layout or interface, that's a sign that you actually care about it.

throwaway98237 10y ago
If no one cares about being downvoted, why is it a thing... If it's a useless thing, why, is it, a thing..?
- type0 10y ago
  As I noticed - it forces newcomers to stay away from reddit style commenting, also it moves down uninteresting and boring comments so that you can skip to read the bottom lines.