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Most comments in a community are unsupported speculation. Those commenters that parrot popular opinions are rewarded.
by vivafrance 8y ago
Most comments in a community are unsupported speculation. Those commenters that parrot popular opinions are rewarded.
- danharaj 8y agoWith what? Fake internet points? Some reward, where do I redeem them?
- ludston 8y agoThey are redeemed on arrival for a sense of adequacy and belonging.
- SimbaOnSteroids 8y agoFake internet points are worth a bit of money if you can find a buyer.
- briandear 8y agoIsn’t that what an ICO is?
- SimbaOnSteroids 8y agoI was thinking of reddit accounts specifically, accounts with age plus karma can be sold for a non insignificant amount.
- nostrademons 8y agoWhy do you post on HN? Would you continue to post if you were shadowbanned or consistently downvoted? Status is a powerful motivator, and you don't even need the points. You just have to feel like people are listening and take what you say seriously.
- soundwave106 8y agoWhich is IMHO why the simplistic upvote / downvote / likes / retweet system is one of the major faults of most social networks. It encourages groupthink and tribalism and discourages engagement with other opinions and perspectives. (EG: Don't like an opinion or statement? Just downvote. Don't even try to engage or understand where the other person is coming from.)
- inopinatus 8y agoNo-one will lie on their deathbed wishing they'd scored more points in the Internet popularity contests. However, I observed my remarks receiving a hidden downweighting following moderator action some time ago. dang confirmed since that they have a "penalty box" mechanism. I post less frequently as a result, because I think fewer people will see what I have to say.
- TAForObvReasons 8y agoForget hidden. I've noticed that within two minutes of every comment I make, even if they eventually end up positive, I get hit with 3-6 downvotes. Almost as if there's a bot. People have noticed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17274713 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17274713 (dipped down to -5 before eventually settling at the current +7) > This chronic downvoting on HN is getting boring. > Not only that - respected HN citizens need to create new throwaway accounts on order to speak their mind. It's becoming a new normal. That's ridiculous. > it's tiring to express your opinion here and contribute to a conversation only to have it downvoted because it wasn't the right contribution. The problem is that the "penalty box" mechanism doesn't distinguish between unpopular but well-reasoned opinions and offensive behavior. People here, like in many other online forums, are all-too-quick to downvote other opinions. This is particular stark in discussions around characters like Elon Musk, where for years criticisms were downvoted and flagged (and only recently has it become safe to comment negatively on the behaviors of Tesla and Musk)
- inopinatus 8y agoI have noticed a greater preponderance of downvoting in recent months as well. However I've attributed that to the growing influence of Reddit, a forum in which brigading is common, voting is less about noise cancellation and more about memetic conformance, and where people will downvote if they disliked your punctuation or are simply having a rough morning.
- lowpro 8y agoYes, that’s how all major social networks work. Despite everyone knowing it’s dumb, it still works. They don’t mean anything except they do because people feel they mean something.
- yesenadam 8y agoDownvoting you in the hope that more people do that and you will have an answer to your question.
- yesenadam 8y agoOk thank u downvoters, I shan't waste any more time posting on HN.
- vivafrance 8y agoPeople who are downvoted get throttled and eventually cant post more than once every hour — thereby insuring the echo chamber becomes even louder.
- zem 8y agohow do you distinguish fake internet points from real internet points?
- southern_cross 8y agoAnd most "scientific studies" that show up in such communities these days are at best only weakly supported, and may all but fall apart at the first sign of someone trying to validate their data integrity or replicate their results. Given the choice between someone sitting in a lab somewhere, maybe running computer models all day vs. the observations of someone who is pretty much hands-on, out in the field every day (like say a fisherman), who do you think I'm generally going to give the benefit of the doubt to?