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Ask HN: Should you be suspicious if your comments only get upvotes?
It seems that in any given community, the best and worst ideas will often be rejected.
They are outliers by definition.
In one sense upvotes may mean you have a good handle on what is acceptable and can model that well.
But on the other, it may also mean that you aren’t taking risks or that your ideas aren’t that original.
Of course some types of originality will be popular.
In other words, don’t feel bad about your downvotes!
Check to be sure you are delivering your ideas in a way that is consistent with the community, but having some downvotes is probably a good signal (or at least, shouldn’t be immediately viewed as a bad signal).
- Phithagoras 8y agoThis may not be true everywhere, particularly HN. Since there's a restriction on who can downvote there's a tendency to ignore comments rather than downvote them. Of course, stuff does get downvoted here but I like to think the culture isn't quite as up-down vote driven as other platforms.
- mimixco 8y agoI've noticed that any anti-nuclear comments that I make here are immediately downvoted. Should I be suspicious that someone is purposely trolling me? I put a lot of effort into making sure what I write is factually correct but nearly every negative nuclear comment gets downvoted to zero or even negative numbers. One OP presented a well-reasoned opinion that no new nuke plants will ever be built in the US (after Sumpter) because it's not cost effective. My comment? "Hallelujah." And it was downvoted.