5 ms·

Ask HN: What's the ghost behind the downvotes?

I got downvoted for some obscure reasons and I feel very bad that my comments were seen as problematic. One was mentioning someone's mispellings in a thread (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1719975) and the other was about making a comment that was equal to most funny comments around on a not so serious thread (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1718842). This is the strangest thing ever and HN's faq is limited in how it sets the rules. I never thought I was doing anything counter-productive or negative. Can you please shed some light please? Can you explain why my interventions were downvoted when very similar posts in those threads were left or upvoted? Note: I know there is no way to know why with the way HN is setup but I would like your educated guess. I just hope Karma on HN is just not a function of how cool, popular or otherwise consensual you are and that people like myself can stay on and bloom with differing styles and views from the majority... I am no Socrates but I can add value I think.

J3L2404 16y ago
"...feel bad that my comments were seen as problematic.." Refreshing attitude for a message board. You should stay on, keep posting.
jon914 16y ago
My impression is that pointing out a typo doesn't further the conversation unless the typo completely alters the meaning of the comment.
- kls 16y ago
  As well dyslexia, is a common problem among right brained people there are a good deal of right brained designers and developers. dyslexia is something that they cannot get rid of, they can work to improve it but it cannot be "cured". Highlighting it can be taken as being an ass to someone with a disability. The problem is in all other matters they are intelligent so many are extremely embarrassed of their inability to spell or put sentences together in proper order as they know individuals will use it to detract from their message. To knit pick their spelling can be misconstrued as an attempt to discredit their argument based on a technicality.
  - tjpick 16y ago
    I think you mean "nitpick" rather than "knit pick".
    - kls 16y ago
      You know I have refrained from the whole HN is going to hell, but to get downvoted for trying to explain a viewpoint that hey he might have gotten downvoted by a dyslexic who took it personal (something I have learned to refrain from doing, by seeing the error of my defensive thinking) and then to have a troll try to get his +5 funny quota (wrong site sir), at the expense of my affliction. Knowing full well that yes I do suffer from the affliction is reprehensible. You sir have reached a new low for this community. It is people like you that make me feel the fool for defending the community of people here to have an intelligent discussion.
      - lachyg 16y ago
        I accidentally down voted you on this. 100% unintentional. I wish there was a way of reversing it.
        kls 16y ago
        Don't worry about it, the karma does not mean much to me. I am here for valuable discussion so long as I have enough karma to participate in the community it is no big deal. My gripe above was more the principal of the matter than the actual loss of points.
jacquesm 16y ago
I think your spelling correction was downvoted because it contained a spelling error and because you came off rather paternalizing. Humor in general is downvoted on HN, especially one liners unless they're really good. Don't take it personal.
- byoung2 16y ago
  you came off rather paternalizing Did you mean patronizing?
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    Doesn't it mean 'to talk to someone as though you're their dad' in English? That's what I meant.
    - byoung2 16y ago
      Paternalizing: disregarding people's freedom and responsibility under guise and pretense of knowing what would be good and proper for them. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/paternalize http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/paternalize Patronizing: Treat as inferior unduly, talk down to, treat condescendingly. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/patronize http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/patronize
      - jacquesm 16y ago
        From that first link: > to place in a fatherly role. That's what I had in mind. Specifically this bit: "Please spell people. This is not SMS!" Which (of course) also contains a grammar error.
        byoung2 16y ago
        to place in a fatherly role That's still the incorrect use of the word, and I don't care if I get downvoted again. Paternalizing refers to the act of treating someone like a father (e.g. "After the death of his father, Bobby grew to paternalize his older brother").
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
ww520 16y ago
Don't worry about it. You have got fans. People got downvoted plenty of times for perfectly fine comments. And there're voting cliches which colluded here that were discovered before. Realize that people here are not your friends or your family. You don't need acceptance or approval from them. Just be yourself and don't give a fuck. Also don't take karma too seriously. It's part of the game mechanic of a social site to make people comment and submit.
byoung2 16y ago
I just hope Karma on HN is just not a function of how cool, popular or otherwise consensual you are and that people like myself can stay on and bloom with differing styles and views from the majority You can search and find plenty of examples of people who have become dissatisfied with the way that Hacker News has gone downhill from where it was a few months or years ago. There has been a tendency in recent months to downvote people who disagree with you, or point out flaws in your logic. Just last year, you would only see downvotes for Digg-style zingers or insensitive comments. Nowadays, you'll get downvoted for persuasive arguments just because people don't agree with you. And there's no humor at all allowed anymore. Just the same old stories day after day (look what Apple announced, look what Arrington said, Rate My Startup, How can I scale my app, should I learn Ruby?), and a lot of people arguing about who said what about startups instead of actually starting companies. I think it's time I started reading HN less and coding more...at least my commits don't get downvoted.
rsaarelm 16y ago
I take the approach that HN conversations are for a very wide audience, so signal-to-noise ratio is important. Chatty comments, which may be fine in smaller forums where people know each other better, end up just looking like extra noise here. I like comments that add to the discussion and aren't gratuitously argumentative. Comments on spelling are only productive when spelling errors actually make it significantly harder to understand something. This wasn't the case with the message you commented on.
jonp 16y ago
>> "...but I can add value I think." I think that's the point. The comment about the spelling mistake didn't add any value to the discussion. It was distracting and a little rude. As to why yours was downvoted while others' similar comments weren't: I guess it's a bit random. Sometimes I'll downvote that sort of comment, sometimes I won't. But it's never based on username.
dfhrtjhf 16y ago
Why do you care? (serious question)
- danielnicollet 16y ago
  First of all, thanks for all the great comments back. I had hoped to get this sort of input and since I have been involved with HN, I had failed to get a sense of what the informal tone and etiquette truly is. I think you all have enlightened me a bit here. As for dfhrtjhf's question above: I just care because I love many of the contributions of HNers I read here every week and I want to contribute something back to this community for that very reason. Does that answer your question?

J3L2404 16y ago

"...feel bad that my comments were seen as problematic.." Refreshing attitude for a message board. You should stay on, keep posting.

jon914 16y ago

My impression is that pointing out a typo doesn't further the conversation unless the typo completely alters the meaning of the comment.

kls 16y ago
As well dyslexia, is a common problem among right brained people there are a good deal of right brained designers and developers. dyslexia is something that they cannot get rid of, they can work to improve it but it cannot be "cured". Highlighting it can be taken as being an ass to someone with a disability. The problem is in all other matters they are intelligent so many are extremely embarrassed of their inability to spell or put sentences together in proper order as they know individuals will use it to detract from their message. To knit pick their spelling can be misconstrued as an attempt to discredit their argument based on a technicality.
- tjpick 16y ago
  I think you mean "nitpick" rather than "knit pick".
  - kls 16y ago
    You know I have refrained from the whole HN is going to hell, but to get downvoted for trying to explain a viewpoint that hey he might have gotten downvoted by a dyslexic who took it personal (something I have learned to refrain from doing, by seeing the error of my defensive thinking) and then to have a troll try to get his +5 funny quota (wrong site sir), at the expense of my affliction. Knowing full well that yes I do suffer from the affliction is reprehensible. You sir have reached a new low for this community. It is people like you that make me feel the fool for defending the community of people here to have an intelligent discussion.
    - lachyg 16y ago
      I accidentally down voted you on this. 100% unintentional. I wish there was a way of reversing it.
      - kls 16y ago
        Don't worry about it, the karma does not mean much to me. I am here for valuable discussion so long as I have enough karma to participate in the community it is no big deal. My gripe above was more the principal of the matter than the actual loss of points.

jacquesm 16y ago

I think your spelling correction was downvoted because it contained a spelling error and because you came off rather paternalizing. Humor in general is downvoted on HN, especially one liners unless they're really good. Don't take it personal.

byoung2 16y ago
you came off rather paternalizing Did you mean patronizing?
- jacquesm 16y ago
  Doesn't it mean 'to talk to someone as though you're their dad' in English? That's what I meant.
  - byoung2 16y ago
    Paternalizing: disregarding people's freedom and responsibility under guise and pretense of knowing what would be good and proper for them. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/paternalize http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/paternalize Patronizing: Treat as inferior unduly, talk down to, treat condescendingly. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/patronize http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/patronize
    - jacquesm 16y ago
      From that first link: > to place in a fatherly role. That's what I had in mind. Specifically this bit: "Please spell people. This is not SMS!" Which (of course) also contains a grammar error.
      - byoung2 16y ago
        to place in a fatherly role That's still the incorrect use of the word, and I don't care if I get downvoted again. Paternalizing refers to the act of treating someone like a father (e.g. "After the death of his father, Bobby grew to paternalize his older brother").

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

ww520 16y ago

Don't worry about it. You have got fans. People got downvoted plenty of times for perfectly fine comments. And there're voting cliches which colluded here that were discovered before. Realize that people here are not your friends or your family. You don't need acceptance or approval from them. Just be yourself and don't give a fuck. Also don't take karma too seriously. It's part of the game mechanic of a social site to make people comment and submit.

byoung2 16y ago

I just hope Karma on HN is just not a function of how cool, popular or otherwise consensual you are and that people like myself can stay on and bloom with differing styles and views from the majority You can search and find plenty of examples of people who have become dissatisfied with the way that Hacker News has gone downhill from where it was a few months or years ago. There has been a tendency in recent months to downvote people who disagree with you, or point out flaws in your logic. Just last year, you would only see downvotes for Digg-style zingers or insensitive comments. Nowadays, you'll get downvoted for persuasive arguments just because people don't agree with you. And there's no humor at all allowed anymore. Just the same old stories day after day (look what Apple announced, look what Arrington said, Rate My Startup, How can I scale my app, should I learn Ruby?), and a lot of people arguing about who said what about startups instead of actually starting companies. I think it's time I started reading HN less and coding more...at least my commits don't get downvoted.

rsaarelm 16y ago

I take the approach that HN conversations are for a very wide audience, so signal-to-noise ratio is important. Chatty comments, which may be fine in smaller forums where people know each other better, end up just looking like extra noise here. I like comments that add to the discussion and aren't gratuitously argumentative. Comments on spelling are only productive when spelling errors actually make it significantly harder to understand something. This wasn't the case with the message you commented on.

jonp 16y ago

>> "...but I can add value I think." I think that's the point. The comment about the spelling mistake didn't add any value to the discussion. It was distracting and a little rude. As to why yours was downvoted while others' similar comments weren't: I guess it's a bit random. Sometimes I'll downvote that sort of comment, sometimes I won't. But it's never based on username.

dfhrtjhf 16y ago

Why do you care? (serious question)

danielnicollet 16y ago
First of all, thanks for all the great comments back. I had hoped to get this sort of input and since I have been involved with HN, I had failed to get a sense of what the informal tone and etiquette truly is. I think you all have enlightened me a bit here. As for dfhrtjhf's question above: I just care because I love many of the contributions of HNers I read here every week and I want to contribute something back to this community for that very reason. Does that answer your question?