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Ironically, I find myself self-censoring with a fake identity in HN more than in real life. A few comments ago, I posted something (which netted me total, abou

by araneae 16y ago

Ironically, I find myself self-censoring with a fake identity in HN more than in real life. A few comments ago, I posted something (which netted me total, about -40 points) that I wouldn't have hesitated to say IRL. And I also posted it under my real name on Facebook (a friend posted the same article there.) But I did hesitate to post it here. And there are many occasions when there are things I haven't said that I would in person. And that's because unlike real life, how much you "downvote" is invisible. Downvoting someone else has no consequences for you. There are new HN controls (like you can't downvote responses to your posts) but that still is a blade of grass on a lawn. In the real world, people might think less of you if you say something (some might consider) sexist, but they're not going to do anything to you at all. So you're protected from backlash. But when people are allowed to anonymously punish you, it makes you hesitate a bit more.

jacquesm 16y ago
-40 is kinda harsh. Did you murder a puppy and admit to it or something like that ?
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  I'm guessing it was this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1784086 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1784086
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - Vivtek 16y ago
    I feel like downvoting it now. That kind of stuff just has no place in rational discourse. If the poster wouldn't hesitate to say it in real life, that's because throwaway comments like that have no record and no real cost among your friends. A comment on HNN is there for a while, though, and visible to everyone. It's appropriate that it have a cost to say something really ... I want to say stupid. But inaccurate is maybe something better. I went to Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology back in medieval times when it was all-male. This attitude was pretty natural there at the time - we were an all-male top engineering college in the same town with ISU, a middling state university, and St. Mary-of-the-Woods, an all-female liberal arts college. Engineers tend to measure intelligence by skill with math and science, so naturally Rose's student body was, by our own measure, the smartest of the three. One year, there was a talk by a Rose alum who had been Out There in the business world, giving advice to the not-yet-graduated. One thing he said stuck with me - he said that one of the hardest things facing Rose graduates was working with women. This is because they consistently underestimated them, and were then crushed, because women are not stupider than men. But there's nothing surer to provoke animosity in any coworker than underestimating them.
raquo 16y ago
The problem with HN is that it shows comment rating as MAX(-4,commentRating). Some people are not aware of this and downvote the comment further, thinking that -4 is not good enough punishment for it. If they saw that the abusing comment had already accumulated 40 downvotes, maybe they wouldn't bury it further.
- jrockway 16y ago
  Yeah. This is a really stupid misfeature. If I see one of my own comments at -4, I try to delete it before it does any more damage. It would be nice if the delete button lasted longer; sometimes your comment gets modded up quickly, and then goes down to -a billion. I guess I don't really care though :)
kls 16y ago
I think one of the problems (and it is not just localized to HN) is people mistake the downvote for, "I don't agree with you". I get downvoted all the time for my position on full client side browser apps. Which to me is the silliest thing to downvote someone for and it seem to be the big one. Not my position in general, but technical dogma in general. It is a form of group think and I think at a certain level it is inescapable. For example, guy (A) like Apple guy (b) does not. Each provide their reasons and both are valid points as to why each holds their position, but many times that exchange will result in a third party that agrees with one downvoting the other. I don't understand why people equate "i don't agree" with "I need to downvote" but it happens and it leads to group think. Given that, similar post receive higher scores while opposing views get suppressed, by the would be poster out of fear of reprisal or from downvoting. There are some key ones that are pretty common obviously Apple is a big one. NoSQL vs Relational is another. Anyway, this does make individuals second guess expressing there real opinion on a subject for fear of being downvoted. If a system could be designed to identify someones bias and make the weight of their down votes and up votes count less for items they show a bias for, I think you could kill some of the group think and fear of reprisal. Also I think downvotes from a users page should be track with particular interest. I do not think it is rampent but I have seen instances where one user is targeting another user with downvotes by visiting their profile and downvoting their threads. I had it happen to me on two occasions one of them I pinpointed who it was because only the posts that the user had not replied to me had been downvoted, given that you can not downvote a post you replied to it was pretty obvious who had done it. Anyway, I think there are some ways that a system could be built to identify downmoderation abuse and weaken or remove those privileges. For myself personally, I say what I think if it gets downvotes then so be it. If I get downvoted to oblivion guess what? The community just validated that it is not the right community for me and it is time to move on. Either there is too much group think or I just have nothing valuable to provide to that community, either way why would I want to hang around. So far most of you guys like me and I am thankful for that as I like HN and yes my real info is my profile and my user name is my initials.

by araneae 16y ago

jacquesm 16y ago

-40 is kinda harsh. Did you murder a puppy and admit to it or something like that ?

steveklabnik 16y ago
I'm guessing it was this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1784086 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1784086
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- Vivtek 16y ago
  I feel like downvoting it now. That kind of stuff just has no place in rational discourse. If the poster wouldn't hesitate to say it in real life, that's because throwaway comments like that have no record and no real cost among your friends. A comment on HNN is there for a while, though, and visible to everyone. It's appropriate that it have a cost to say something really ... I want to say stupid. But inaccurate is maybe something better. I went to Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology back in medieval times when it was all-male. This attitude was pretty natural there at the time - we were an all-male top engineering college in the same town with ISU, a middling state university, and St. Mary-of-the-Woods, an all-female liberal arts college. Engineers tend to measure intelligence by skill with math and science, so naturally Rose's student body was, by our own measure, the smartest of the three. One year, there was a talk by a Rose alum who had been Out There in the business world, giving advice to the not-yet-graduated. One thing he said stuck with me - he said that one of the hardest things facing Rose graduates was working with women. This is because they consistently underestimated them, and were then crushed, because women are not stupider than men. But there's nothing surer to provoke animosity in any coworker than underestimating them.

raquo 16y ago

The problem with HN is that it shows comment rating as MAX(-4,commentRating). Some people are not aware of this and downvote the comment further, thinking that -4 is not good enough punishment for it. If they saw that the abusing comment had already accumulated 40 downvotes, maybe they wouldn't bury it further.

jrockway 16y ago
Yeah. This is a really stupid misfeature. If I see one of my own comments at -4, I try to delete it before it does any more damage. It would be nice if the delete button lasted longer; sometimes your comment gets modded up quickly, and then goes down to -a billion. I guess I don't really care though :)

kls 16y ago

I think one of the problems (and it is not just localized to HN) is people mistake the downvote for, "I don't agree with you". I get downvoted all the time for my position on full client side browser apps. Which to me is the silliest thing to downvote someone for and it seem to be the big one. Not my position in general, but technical dogma in general. It is a form of group think and I think at a certain level it is inescapable. For example, guy (A) like Apple guy (b) does not. Each provide their reasons and both are valid points as to why each holds their position, but many times that exchange will result in a third party that agrees with one downvoting the other. I don't understand why people equate "i don't agree" with "I need to downvote" but it happens and it leads to group think. Given that, similar post receive higher scores while opposing views get suppressed, by the would be poster out of fear of reprisal or from downvoting. There are some key ones that are pretty common obviously Apple is a big one. NoSQL vs Relational is another. Anyway, this does make individuals second guess expressing there real opinion on a subject for fear of being downvoted. If a system could be designed to identify someones bias and make the weight of their down votes and up votes count less for items they show a bias for, I think you could kill some of the group think and fear of reprisal. Also I think downvotes from a users page should be track with particular interest. I do not think it is rampent but I have seen instances where one user is targeting another user with downvotes by visiting their profile and downvoting their threads. I had it happen to me on two occasions one of them I pinpointed who it was because only the posts that the user had not replied to me had been downvoted, given that you can not downvote a post you replied to it was pretty obvious who had done it. Anyway, I think there are some ways that a system could be built to identify downmoderation abuse and weaken or remove those privileges. For myself personally, I say what I think if it gets downvotes then so be it. If I get downvoted to oblivion guess what? The community just validated that it is not the right community for me and it is time to move on. Either there is too much group think or I just have nothing valuable to provide to that community, either way why would I want to hang around. So far most of you guys like me and I am thankful for that as I like HN and yes my real info is my profile and my user name is my initials.