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> I believe they also say please don’t comment explaining why you downvoted. You shouldn't comment why you downvoted, so much on why you disagree in the first
by hoaw 8y ago
> I believe they also say please don’t comment explaining why you downvoted.
You shouldn't comment why you downvoted, so much on why you disagree in the first place. The thing is that there are always someone who disagrees. Especially when judging something based on a few sentences. I would say at least 10% of my comments where someone responds they have something else in mind than I did when writing it. Disagreeing over click doesn't make much sense.
- whiddershins 8y agoSay someone downvotes because they disagree, but they misunderstood what you wrote ... At what point do you take responsibility for writing something easily misunderstood? I'm not meaning this as any form of snark. I think anyone who writes anything has to consider to what extent it can be misconstrued and where the line is after which they won't be even more pedantic, just to avoid being read poorly.
- hoaw 8y agoIt is almost impossible to have something mean the same to everyone. That it doesn't is sort of the point of having a discussion in the first place. There are plenty of evidence on hacker news that people will have different, let's say perspectives, on even the most carefully crafted articles. What I think mostly happens instead is that you start adapt what you write to please the crowd. Sometimes that is a good thing, if it leads to things like being more polite or making better argument, but often it means being either more controversial or writing more vaguely to balance upvote and downvotes. When the primary concern should really be writing decent comments, even if only one person might find it interesting and some small percentage of the crowd disagrees.