4 ms·

> You're not communicating if people reflexively downvote you. I don't really understand this; most likely I think that you are communicating, and people don't

by ue_ 9y ago

> You're not communicating if people reflexively downvote you. I don't really understand this; most likely I think that you are communicating, and people don't like what they're reading. Sure, posts that don't communicate are downvoted, but so are posts that do communicate. I haven't actually read the comment we're talking about, because I can't, but my point of contention is that receiving downvotes should be considered as some sacred message to re-think your life. It shouldn't, it just shows that an elite group of HN users have decided they don't like what you're saying. It might be for good reasons or bad reasons. In the past I have tried to reach out to HN's medium, writing posts I think are thought out, non-attackative, presenting an interesting viewpoint etc. only to have them downvoted 2 or 3 times, and I suspect it's because I espouse a particular political viewpoint, even when on topic. Some other of my comments have been upvoted, with much the same content. I have discovered that it's very hard to predict if your comment will be upvoted or downvoted, so I stopped caring so much. It's clear that the HN mods or perhaps PG himself want to manipulate people into espousing points that everyone else likes, even going so far as to gray out comments to make them harder to read, of course so that people won't want to read them. I found that I was being stopped from posting things I thought were interesting or perhaps controversial, and instead I was searching for things that would get me upvotes. This is in stark contrast to the old style imageboards, in which everyone's post is given an equal footing. Downvoting is a dirty little system, and it's one of the things keeping me from posting more on this site, which is filled with relatively intelligent discussion on all sorts of topics. And do not start me talking about how the HN moderators have decided that sometimes "You're submitting too fast, please slow down" when I want to post something in quick succession (about twice per hour even). It makes it impossible for me to have discussions here with this. I don't know if it affects other people (I suspect it does not), but it's so frustrating. Sometimes I have to collate two or three posts into one to avoid being prevented from posting. Reddit doesn't do that, the imageboards don't do that, in fact almost no other forum does this.

vidarh 9y ago
For the occasional downvote, yes, I agree. If the downvoting gets systematic, it is a sign that people downvote without even bothering to pay attention, in which case continuing in the same vein defeats the purpose vs. learning to communicate in a vein more suitable to where you are communicating. I agree with not caring if every comment is upvoted, and not panic if you get some downvotes, but often it is a matter of learning to conform just a little bit to the style of the given forum. It does not have to mean moderating your opinions much, but much more often moderating their form. E.g. I'm politically far to the left of most HN'ers, yet I have written comments here quoting Marx that get upvoted. I similarly see plenty of right wing comments too that get upvoted. But HN will be brutal with "dumbed down" or inflammatory political comments.
- ue_ 9y ago
  I've quoted Engels in one comment and my final score on that comment was -3. I used the same quote somewhere else and the score was 10. Could this be attributed to whether I'm posting in the appropriate thread, or is it that leftists are more interested in certain threads or subthreads? I don't know, but it's frustrating that I get downvoted in one place and upvoted in another, for essentially the same message. I try not to make my comments dumbed down; recently I was have a discussion about the theory of surplus value, and I wasn't downvoted there, but somewhere else I talked about wage slavery in a similar way and I was downvoted there. Both times I tried to support what I was saying with quotations and reasoned arguments. So I don't know if downvoting is an effective way of helping to enforce a particular standard of comments; as on Reddit, I think it's more likely to be used just to downvote what people don't like, and that applies to propertarians too or any position that's unorthodox.
  - Freestyler_3 9y ago
    Good thing not everyone can just downvote. I don't know exactly how it works with the voting and all here. My own comments get downvotes sometimes, but its either because I wrote it in a way that was to open for interpetation or too vague.

by ue_ 9y ago

vidarh 9y ago

For the occasional downvote, yes, I agree. If the downvoting gets systematic, it is a sign that people downvote without even bothering to pay attention, in which case continuing in the same vein defeats the purpose vs. learning to communicate in a vein more suitable to where you are communicating. I agree with not caring if every comment is upvoted, and not panic if you get some downvotes, but often it is a matter of learning to conform just a little bit to the style of the given forum. It does not have to mean moderating your opinions much, but much more often moderating their form. E.g. I'm politically far to the left of most HN'ers, yet I have written comments here quoting Marx that get upvoted. I similarly see plenty of right wing comments too that get upvoted. But HN will be brutal with "dumbed down" or inflammatory political comments.

ue_ 9y ago
I've quoted Engels in one comment and my final score on that comment was -3. I used the same quote somewhere else and the score was 10. Could this be attributed to whether I'm posting in the appropriate thread, or is it that leftists are more interested in certain threads or subthreads? I don't know, but it's frustrating that I get downvoted in one place and upvoted in another, for essentially the same message. I try not to make my comments dumbed down; recently I was have a discussion about the theory of surplus value, and I wasn't downvoted there, but somewhere else I talked about wage slavery in a similar way and I was downvoted there. Both times I tried to support what I was saying with quotations and reasoned arguments. So I don't know if downvoting is an effective way of helping to enforce a particular standard of comments; as on Reddit, I think it's more likely to be used just to downvote what people don't like, and that applies to propertarians too or any position that's unorthodox.
- Freestyler_3 9y ago
  Good thing not everyone can just downvote. I don't know exactly how it works with the voting and all here. My own comments get downvotes sometimes, but its either because I wrote it in a way that was to open for interpetation or too vague.