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I hate to have sympathy for the devil here, but I see their point. Hackernews is living proof. Pre-election, you could voice a contrary opinion here and have

I hate to have sympathy for the devil here, but I see their point. Hackernews is living proof. Pre-election, you could voice a contrary opinion here and have a discussion. Post-election, even the faintest wrongthink shibboleth gets silently downvoted into oblivion.

wavefunction 9y ago
I don't agree with your pre/post-election divide. I've voiced my opposition to what I consider unrestrained capitalism and ideological free-marketerism and been downvoted many times over the years preceding the election. I've had dang come down on me for expressing my views (it's his and the moderators' prerogative but I'm not stopping either). It doesn't bother me because that's who I am. I'd rather folks offer their disagreements than downvote my comments because that's what I'm here for: discussion and synthesis with the ideas and arguments put forth by folks who share some or none of my interests. Even you mention "sympathy for the devil." I don't know if that's recognition that some viewpoints are truly toxic and unworthy of even basic respect and consideration or an merely an allusion to the down-voting of un-conventional views and thoughts. For me, there is nothing interesting to discuss about ideas or views espousing racism or gender-bigotry, but those are different than discussing the factual situations of ethnicity and gender in our society as determined by historical legacies and cultural forces. I will respect the right of an individual to hold bigoted views but that doesn't mean I must respect the individual, either.
- jstewartmobile 9y ago
  "sympathy for the devil" would be "poor little billionaire" in Peter Thiel's case. As though there aren't hundreds of media outlets that wouldn't jump at the chance to hand him the megaphone for whatever he felt like saying at the time.
chappi42 9y ago
It's the same in Germany. You voice that the many refugees (with often very conservative religious and patriarchal views) pose problems and, päng, you are a nazi. A balanced discourse is (was) no longer possible. (It's getting a bit better again after some ramnifications became plain to see in some every-day situations).
- didibus 9y ago
  Aren't there prerequisite to a discourse? Like all parties coming together with open minds. Having the intent to seek the truth, not an agenda to win. Using reason and rational thinking over your emotions. I think lately we're not meeting those qualifications, so maybe it is best not to engage, since discourse would not be productive.
  - muninn_ 9y ago
    Which could be a fine solution, except one or more groups still are making rules which affect the lives of all of the other groups. So disengaging means letting other groups you may disagree with dictate parts of your life.
    - XorNot 9y ago
      Welcome to civil society. Learn to play ball and compromise since the alternative is from what those refugees are escaping.
- praulv 9y ago
  Shall we start with the harassment and domestic violence problem? Or do you want me to pull out the statistics on "native" European populations. At least they don't go shoot up schools....
- blattimwind 9y ago
  From my PoV it seems like this has mostly been sorted out by now. While up to a ~year ago the position of "we must never ever put limits on immigration!" was hugely overrepresented in the media and by politicians. It became quite apparent that the majority of the populus does not support this stance, and that it's neither wise nor a good move to attempt the Nazikeule whenever anyone says something ever-so-slightly different from "we must never ever put limits on immigration!".
door3 9y ago
I was shadowbanned for getting downvoted too much for saying James Damore had terrible sexist opinions and should have been fired. Hackernews is predominantly right wing & conservative.
- gameswithgo 9y ago
  You probably just weren't civil enough? I've been shadowbanned but it is because I lost my shit and became rude. I mean it is understandable to lose one's shit here sometimes but also understandable to not allow it.
  - door3 9y ago
    Maybe, but really the point isn't about me. The point is the dominant opinion on Hackernews is "James Damore was right!" or at least "James Damore made some good points", which, whether you believe it or not, is absolutely a right-wing, conservative opinion, not the kind of "liberal SV PC culture" that is supposedly dominant and oppressive.
    - dang 9y ago
      Every side thinks HN is dominated by the opposite side. This is as reliable as clockwork. But the truth is boringly tautological: on divisive issues, the community is divided, like any sufficient sample of society at large would be. People with strong views simply notice the comments they dislike much more strongly. And sometimes they pass around links to their friends to 'prove' it—which proves nothing, of course, but does strongly reinforce their perception. Once reinforced, these perceptions seem not to change. On HN the divisions are exacerbated by this being so international a community. Only a third, last I checked, is in the US, and only a small minority in SV. So what we're all encountering here is not just polarization in the US, but much disagreement across national and cultural divides. p.s. Unless I'm mistaken about the account, we didn't ban you. Nor have we shadowbanned accounts for years (except new accounts that appear to be trolling or spamming). When an account has been around for a while, we tell people we banned them. --- Edit: while I'm thinking about this... Subtler factors exacerbate these perceptions too. HN isn't siloed—we have no subreddits, no following/blocking—just one big place where everyone sees the same things. Because of that, we're all more likely on HN to encounter comments from people we don't normally mix with, except perhaps on the battlefield. Reading what the 'other side' posts is not fun; it's painful. It gets right in your face and feels like being attacked. It seems to take only a few cases of this before it overflows into one's image of the site itself. That association makes sense emotionally: I come to this place, I feel pain and anger, therefore this is a hateful place. But it's also just what one would expect from the numbers, which is why the reaction is so clockwork-reliable, as I said above. The people with opposite views to yours are feeling just the same anger and pain. We see this not only about politics, but about programming languages, large companies, one's own work, and everything else people feel strongly about. We're all in one of those tricky spots where human feelings and statistics don't go well together, and for the most part don't realize it.
dang 9y ago
Only a small minority of HN users are in Silicon Valley, so your argument wouldn't apply here even if it were true. When I see complaints like this I always look at the history. Usually the account in question has a pattern of posting flamebait and/or snark. In that case you needn't reach for political bias or 'wrongthink' to explain why the community downvotes such comments. They get downvoted simply because they break the site rules. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- jstewartmobile 9y ago
  Perhaps not valley-centric, but definitely metro-area-centric, which tends to lean agnostic/globalist/liberal/capitalist/etc. That, and wrongthink need not limit itself to politics. On HN we have it for technologies as well!
- kelukelugames 9y ago
  Are there user statistics? Would love to see them.
  - dang 9y ago
    You mean geographically? We're probably going to look at that again this week. If you email hn@ycombinator.com in a week or two we could send you the info. I might write a post about it.
    - kelukelugames 9y ago
      Maybe with even more detail. Can we do a survey like Stack OVerflow? If not officially then can I do one?
nova22033 9y ago
You seem to think you have some sort of constitutional right to NOT be downvoted..
- jstewartmobile 9y ago
  Re-read original comment. Criticism wasn't downvoting, but silent downvoting. Also intended it as a general observation rather than a personal complaint.

wavefunction 9y ago

I don't agree with your pre/post-election divide. I've voiced my opposition to what I consider unrestrained capitalism and ideological free-marketerism and been downvoted many times over the years preceding the election. I've had dang come down on me for expressing my views (it's his and the moderators' prerogative but I'm not stopping either). It doesn't bother me because that's who I am. I'd rather folks offer their disagreements than downvote my comments because that's what I'm here for: discussion and synthesis with the ideas and arguments put forth by folks who share some or none of my interests. Even you mention "sympathy for the devil." I don't know if that's recognition that some viewpoints are truly toxic and unworthy of even basic respect and consideration or an merely an allusion to the down-voting of un-conventional views and thoughts. For me, there is nothing interesting to discuss about ideas or views espousing racism or gender-bigotry, but those are different than discussing the factual situations of ethnicity and gender in our society as determined by historical legacies and cultural forces. I will respect the right of an individual to hold bigoted views but that doesn't mean I must respect the individual, either.

jstewartmobile 9y ago
"sympathy for the devil" would be "poor little billionaire" in Peter Thiel's case. As though there aren't hundreds of media outlets that wouldn't jump at the chance to hand him the megaphone for whatever he felt like saying at the time.

chappi42 9y ago

It's the same in Germany. You voice that the many refugees (with often very conservative religious and patriarchal views) pose problems and, päng, you are a nazi. A balanced discourse is (was) no longer possible. (It's getting a bit better again after some ramnifications became plain to see in some every-day situations).

didibus 9y ago
Aren't there prerequisite to a discourse? Like all parties coming together with open minds. Having the intent to seek the truth, not an agenda to win. Using reason and rational thinking over your emotions. I think lately we're not meeting those qualifications, so maybe it is best not to engage, since discourse would not be productive.
- muninn_ 9y ago
  Which could be a fine solution, except one or more groups still are making rules which affect the lives of all of the other groups. So disengaging means letting other groups you may disagree with dictate parts of your life.
  - XorNot 9y ago
    Welcome to civil society. Learn to play ball and compromise since the alternative is from what those refugees are escaping.
praulv 9y ago
Shall we start with the harassment and domestic violence problem? Or do you want me to pull out the statistics on "native" European populations. At least they don't go shoot up schools....
blattimwind 9y ago
From my PoV it seems like this has mostly been sorted out by now. While up to a ~year ago the position of "we must never ever put limits on immigration!" was hugely overrepresented in the media and by politicians. It became quite apparent that the majority of the populus does not support this stance, and that it's neither wise nor a good move to attempt the Nazikeule whenever anyone says something ever-so-slightly different from "we must never ever put limits on immigration!".

door3 9y ago

I was shadowbanned for getting downvoted too much for saying James Damore had terrible sexist opinions and should have been fired. Hackernews is predominantly right wing & conservative.

gameswithgo 9y ago
You probably just weren't civil enough? I've been shadowbanned but it is because I lost my shit and became rude. I mean it is understandable to lose one's shit here sometimes but also understandable to not allow it.
- door3 9y ago
  Maybe, but really the point isn't about me. The point is the dominant opinion on Hackernews is "James Damore was right!" or at least "James Damore made some good points", which, whether you believe it or not, is absolutely a right-wing, conservative opinion, not the kind of "liberal SV PC culture" that is supposedly dominant and oppressive.
  - dang 9y ago
    Every side thinks HN is dominated by the opposite side. This is as reliable as clockwork. But the truth is boringly tautological: on divisive issues, the community is divided, like any sufficient sample of society at large would be. People with strong views simply notice the comments they dislike much more strongly. And sometimes they pass around links to their friends to 'prove' it—which proves nothing, of course, but does strongly reinforce their perception. Once reinforced, these perceptions seem not to change. On HN the divisions are exacerbated by this being so international a community. Only a third, last I checked, is in the US, and only a small minority in SV. So what we're all encountering here is not just polarization in the US, but much disagreement across national and cultural divides. p.s. Unless I'm mistaken about the account, we didn't ban you. Nor have we shadowbanned accounts for years (except new accounts that appear to be trolling or spamming). When an account has been around for a while, we tell people we banned them. --- Edit: while I'm thinking about this... Subtler factors exacerbate these perceptions too. HN isn't siloed—we have no subreddits, no following/blocking—just one big place where everyone sees the same things. Because of that, we're all more likely on HN to encounter comments from people we don't normally mix with, except perhaps on the battlefield. Reading what the 'other side' posts is not fun; it's painful. It gets right in your face and feels like being attacked. It seems to take only a few cases of this before it overflows into one's image of the site itself. That association makes sense emotionally: I come to this place, I feel pain and anger, therefore this is a hateful place. But it's also just what one would expect from the numbers, which is why the reaction is so clockwork-reliable, as I said above. The people with opposite views to yours are feeling just the same anger and pain. We see this not only about politics, but about programming languages, large companies, one's own work, and everything else people feel strongly about. We're all in one of those tricky spots where human feelings and statistics don't go well together, and for the most part don't realize it.

dang 9y ago

Only a small minority of HN users are in Silicon Valley, so your argument wouldn't apply here even if it were true. When I see complaints like this I always look at the history. Usually the account in question has a pattern of posting flamebait and/or snark. In that case you needn't reach for political bias or 'wrongthink' to explain why the community downvotes such comments. They get downvoted simply because they break the site rules. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

jstewartmobile 9y ago
Perhaps not valley-centric, but definitely metro-area-centric, which tends to lean agnostic/globalist/liberal/capitalist/etc. That, and wrongthink need not limit itself to politics. On HN we have it for technologies as well!
kelukelugames 9y ago
Are there user statistics? Would love to see them.
- dang 9y ago
  You mean geographically? We're probably going to look at that again this week. If you email hn@ycombinator.com in a week or two we could send you the info. I might write a post about it.
  - kelukelugames 9y ago
    Maybe with even more detail. Can we do a survey like Stack OVerflow? If not officially then can I do one?

nova22033 9y ago

You seem to think you have some sort of constitutional right to NOT be downvoted..

jstewartmobile 9y ago
Re-read original comment. Criticism wasn't downvoting, but silent downvoting. Also intended it as a general observation rather than a personal complaint.