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Yet there are much "worse" articles posted here, or at least there have been. There was an article about Falkvinge arguing to legalise photographic child pornog

by ue_ 9y ago

Yet there are much "worse" articles posted here, or at least there have been. There was an article about Falkvinge arguing to legalise photographic child pornography, which was posted here. It got a large number of upvotes. This article inside it talks about the issue. The issue doesn't have to be discussed right now, it can be discussed when people at home. People don't have to even look at my comment, though in my judgment it seems as though you might find any sort of discussion when you go to a HN comments thread, some unsavory. There's also a lot of people who aren't viewing from work. I'm not asking people to discuss my point, though just because you don't want to discuss, it doesn't mean the correct response is to downvote my comment. It is tangentially related, and frequently we find even more 'off topic' posts getting upvoted, such as even those about the website's JS and CSS quirks. My point ties in well with why certain content can't be carried, which is in line or at least related to the article itself. I'm really failing to see your point, and it doesn't justify the downvotes.

strictnein 9y ago
And I wouldn't have clicked that link to discuss that topic. The problem is that you're in a discussion about Mastodon bringing it into here. Sorry for engaging with you. I was trying to be helpful, but you're just looking to rant on a topic that you seem strangely interested in.
- avaer 9y ago
  > that you seem strangely interested in Not sure why that's being zoomed in on. The very manifesto of HN is to post things that are strangely interesting.
- ue_ 9y ago
  And yet it would have appeared on your screen nevertheless. You, or others in your position, also wouldn't have replied to me in such an instance, if you didn't want to discuss the topic. I was asking for a reason why my comment was being downvoted, not why people weren't replying to it. The discussion is not only about Mastodon, but the importance and meaning and implementation of censorship on Mastodon instances. It is as much a political and social issue as it is a technical one, as any article about tech law or policy will tell you. I picked up on one particular aspect of the social issue. Your explanation, well intentioned as it may have been, failed to explain why people were downvoting, or at least from my point of view failed to rationalise the behavior of the downvoters.
quirkafleeg 9y ago
I think I've whined about downvotes (specific ones and in general terms) in the distant past (it gets you nowhere, and is boring) and I think they often cause the kind of negativity this site otherwise attempts to avoid, but in this case maybe some people just disagree with you on the tangential subject you brought up, but didn't want to get into a discussion about it with you, or didn't want to see a discussion on that subject float to the top.
- ue_ 9y ago
  Please don't mistake me, I wasn't trying to whine about downvotes. I wanted to find out the reason why people are downvoting, rather than replying. Hacker News strikes me as a very odd place; on one hand, encouraging discussion of interesting topics, on the other hand, giving a group of people with more than 500 points this ability to hide discussion they like. It would be much better if, rather than disagreeing by downvoting, which is effectively a statement like "I don't like that" (which humorously, HN discourages if you state explicitly), to either say nothing at all (like those with <500 karma) or to state your disagreement. For me it's hard, too. The HN moderators have decided to block me from posting too quickly. I never used to get this message until recently; now I am told that "You're posting too fast, please slow down.", which to be honest, I can't describe the words of irritation I would otherwise use if I wasn't being civil on this forum. It's so silly to be stopping people from engaging in quick discussion. I know it's to prevent flamewars, but the fact that it applies even if I'm not flaming (which I don't do much here) is ridiculous. The worst part is where the HN moderators roll in with the classic "we've detached this and marked it off-topic". This is perhaps the one thing which reddit/<n>chan gets right, the moderators won't tell you that something is off topic just because they think it is. It evidently isn't off topic if people are discussing it. This website really does baffle me sometimes. In some cases it's unparalleled for informative discussion where I can learn sometimes about hotter topics. On the other hand, it has this truly horrible and infantile elite-downvoters culture which exists to control how you think and what kind of opinions you espouse, for fear of being downvoted. It encourages self-censure to the tune of the opinion of the downvoting group. You have to dance their jig, or have your comment greyed out, which probably attracts more downvotes. Having one discussion floating to the top doesn't mean that the other discussions are unavailable. If it really is as uninteresting as the downvoter thinks it is, few people will engage in it. I'm sorry for the rant, but this website is very grating, and it's not because of the users, it's because of the way it's run, and what powers the users have. It's almost as if downvoting was implemented beacuse it's known to be exactly like an "I don't like that" message, which will make anyone annoyed when all they want to do is engage in thoughtful discussion. And don't get me started on how people will downvote you on topics when you speak of politics they disagree with or make cogent points. I've noticed this on both sides; when I speak of my Communism and anarchism, I'm getting downvoted for it. When some speak of their strongly libertarian "an"cap principles, they're getting downvoted. And time and time again, I've been told by those helpful commenters - it's not beacuse of the quality of my comments. It's just that people disagree. And that means I get my comment greyed out and I'm not allowed to post more than twice every two hours. I really wish intelligent discussion like on HN would take place on other websites (except reddit). That way, I wouldn't have to deal with this elite-downvoter culture. And before someone brings up the point that discussion here is intelligent because of the power to downvote, it would be nice if there were some evidence for that assertion. Mailing lists and forums and the old-style chans (by old-style I mean before the addition of backlinks and "(You)"s) didn't have downvotes.

by ue_ 9y ago

strictnein 9y ago

And I wouldn't have clicked that link to discuss that topic. The problem is that you're in a discussion about Mastodon bringing it into here. Sorry for engaging with you. I was trying to be helpful, but you're just looking to rant on a topic that you seem strangely interested in.

avaer 9y ago
> that you seem strangely interested in Not sure why that's being zoomed in on. The very manifesto of HN is to post things that are strangely interesting.
ue_ 9y ago
And yet it would have appeared on your screen nevertheless. You, or others in your position, also wouldn't have replied to me in such an instance, if you didn't want to discuss the topic. I was asking for a reason why my comment was being downvoted, not why people weren't replying to it. The discussion is not only about Mastodon, but the importance and meaning and implementation of censorship on Mastodon instances. It is as much a political and social issue as it is a technical one, as any article about tech law or policy will tell you. I picked up on one particular aspect of the social issue. Your explanation, well intentioned as it may have been, failed to explain why people were downvoting, or at least from my point of view failed to rationalise the behavior of the downvoters.

quirkafleeg 9y ago

I think I've whined about downvotes (specific ones and in general terms) in the distant past (it gets you nowhere, and is boring) and I think they often cause the kind of negativity this site otherwise attempts to avoid, but in this case maybe some people just disagree with you on the tangential subject you brought up, but didn't want to get into a discussion about it with you, or didn't want to see a discussion on that subject float to the top.

ue_ 9y ago
Please don't mistake me, I wasn't trying to whine about downvotes. I wanted to find out the reason why people are downvoting, rather than replying. Hacker News strikes me as a very odd place; on one hand, encouraging discussion of interesting topics, on the other hand, giving a group of people with more than 500 points this ability to hide discussion they like. It would be much better if, rather than disagreeing by downvoting, which is effectively a statement like "I don't like that" (which humorously, HN discourages if you state explicitly), to either say nothing at all (like those with <500 karma) or to state your disagreement. For me it's hard, too. The HN moderators have decided to block me from posting too quickly. I never used to get this message until recently; now I am told that "You're posting too fast, please slow down.", which to be honest, I can't describe the words of irritation I would otherwise use if I wasn't being civil on this forum. It's so silly to be stopping people from engaging in quick discussion. I know it's to prevent flamewars, but the fact that it applies even if I'm not flaming (which I don't do much here) is ridiculous. The worst part is where the HN moderators roll in with the classic "we've detached this and marked it off-topic". This is perhaps the one thing which reddit/<n>chan gets right, the moderators won't tell you that something is off topic just because they think it is. It evidently isn't off topic if people are discussing it. This website really does baffle me sometimes. In some cases it's unparalleled for informative discussion where I can learn sometimes about hotter topics. On the other hand, it has this truly horrible and infantile elite-downvoters culture which exists to control how you think and what kind of opinions you espouse, for fear of being downvoted. It encourages self-censure to the tune of the opinion of the downvoting group. You have to dance their jig, or have your comment greyed out, which probably attracts more downvotes. Having one discussion floating to the top doesn't mean that the other discussions are unavailable. If it really is as uninteresting as the downvoter thinks it is, few people will engage in it. I'm sorry for the rant, but this website is very grating, and it's not because of the users, it's because of the way it's run, and what powers the users have. It's almost as if downvoting was implemented beacuse it's known to be exactly like an "I don't like that" message, which will make anyone annoyed when all they want to do is engage in thoughtful discussion. And don't get me started on how people will downvote you on topics when you speak of politics they disagree with or make cogent points. I've noticed this on both sides; when I speak of my Communism and anarchism, I'm getting downvoted for it. When some speak of their strongly libertarian "an"cap principles, they're getting downvoted. And time and time again, I've been told by those helpful commenters - it's not beacuse of the quality of my comments. It's just that people disagree. And that means I get my comment greyed out and I'm not allowed to post more than twice every two hours. I really wish intelligent discussion like on HN would take place on other websites (except reddit). That way, I wouldn't have to deal with this elite-downvoter culture. And before someone brings up the point that discussion here is intelligent because of the power to downvote, it would be nice if there were some evidence for that assertion. Mailing lists and forums and the old-style chans (by old-style I mean before the addition of backlinks and "(You)"s) didn't have downvotes.