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Ask HN: Are robots running wild on HN?
I just made a comment on the article trending about the Sprint merger.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20535872
I posted a comment that I felt was directly relevant, with a link to where the assertion was made. I did not add my commentary on the people involved.
Within seconds, it was downvoted. (I don't care about the downvote.)
I was not intentionally trying to start a flame war. I made no comment that Trump was "bad."
Is it possible that any comment with Trump in it would be downvoted by a robot account? I've noticed the same thing happening when the discussion is related to China, comments are immediately downvoted. (I would not have noticed this if I had not been so addicted to the reward of getting an upvote that I check several seconds after posting.)
Here are the guidelines I saw which could apply.
> Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.
> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That destroys intellectual curiosity, which is what the site exists for.
I don't care about HN being fair. It just seemed like a suspicious immediate downvote which could not have been from someone who actually read the article. I can understand someone doing a kneejerk downvote, but it would be really interesting if a discussion forum like HN turned into a place where public opinion about controversial topics could be molded and shaped. Possible?
- minimaxir 7y ago> Within seconds, it was downvoted. (I don't care about the downvote.) The existence of this submission contradicts the parenthetical. :P There are a lot of people on Hacker News: an "immediate" downvote is not evidence of botting.
- xrd 7y agoYou are correct. I do care about downvoting, but only because I think it is important to have people downvoting things you say, otherwise you are living a safe and boring life. I stand corrected (but I'm not sure that is what you mean by "contradicting the parenthetical"). You are someone that cares about data and trends of data. One time happening is not evidence nor a trend. But, I'm wondering if others have seen similar things. The example I cited here seemed like a very quick reaction (which is possible, people on all sides do that with Trump...). But, if it happens often, especially about certain topics, wouldn't that be interesting?
- xrd 7y agoAnd, if a comment is downvoted just a few times, it effectively hides that comment, right? There is not much of a threshold to control a conversation with a few robot accounts, right?
- gus_massa 7y agoA comment must get to get many downvotes before it is killed and hidden. [1] The site has protections against voting rings [1], I guess it has protections against downvoting rings [1]. If you have a clear example, try to email the mods so they take a look hn@ycombinator.com I (and many other users) upvote grey comments when they are not offensive or very wrong. (I also try not to downvote grey comments unless they are very offensive or extremely wrong.) So to kill the comment it is necessary to use even more robots.
- minimaxir 7y agoThere are weird voting behaviors when Trump is involved, yes, but nothing to suspect it's botting.
- necovek 7y agoBut I am not a robot. Really.
- cerberusss 7y agoFellow humans, I acknowledge the above assertion: he is totally not a robot.
- kazinator 7y agoNote that a downvoting robot on HN has to have a 500+ karma (or whatever is the minimum now), like everyone else. You can't just create a throwaway account, connect it to a robot, and start downvoting away. That doesn't ensure robots can't happen, but it it puts quite a damper on any rampancy.
- krapp 7y agoIt's not outside the realm of possibility to organically build multiple accounts that reach the karma limit eventually, then automate them.
- NeedMoreTea 7y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments https://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments Is often a place to spot where the interesting discussions are. Especially those with active discussion, but have dropped down or off the front page. I doubt I'm the only one who checks that page reasonably regularly, and the "new" submissions page - which is where I saw this question, not via "ask". Equally it would allow someone to notice a comment they took issue with immediately it was posted, and send some down vote love within a single second.
- Udik 7y agoSlightly off-topic, but I keep thinking that downvoting should only be possible together with a comment stating the reason for the downvote.
- xrd 7y agoYeah, or, perhaps when you downvote, you need to check all the checkboxes which indicate what guidelines were not followed.
- Udik 7y agoWell, you can downvote also simply to disagree. But would be good to state why you do. Also, "downvoting comments" could be in turn discussed and up/downvoted.
- xrd 7y agoI guess I disagree with that usage of downvote. Shouldn't you reply to the comment and engage if you disagree? A downvote seems like it indicates something else, poor community behavior. I'm open to being wrong and I think it should be clarified.
- detaro 7y agoThat sounds like a surefire way of creating large discussions around bad comments, instead of moving them out of the way.
- Udik 7y agoDownvoted comments (and threads) can be still moved to the bottom.
- bjourne 7y agoThe site's administrators have repeatedly stated that you can down vote for any reason whatsoever. People have protested over the years but it is not going to change. I therefore randomly down vote comments that I read. Because spite is a reason. If enough users random vote the karma system breaks and maybe the admins will fix it.