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I’ll add one to this list, I’m sorry if it comes off as complaining, but at least it’s topical. There is more than one karma tracking algorithm that can be ac

by zaroth 6y ago

I’ll add one to this list, I’m sorry if it comes off as complaining, but at least it’s topical. There is more than one karma tracking algorithm that can be activated for a given account. That is to say, a downvote is not always a downvote, and an upvote is not always an upvote, and the point score of a comment is not always exactly equal to the number of up and downvotes. Accounts that are flagged for posting flame-baiting or ideological comments can be switched to an alternate voting mode where votes are not counted the same way. This may mean that any manual downvotes are given greater weight, or upvotes are underweighted, or downvoting is automatically applied after some time providing a type of downward gravity which must be overcome. I don’t know the precise algorithm. It’s complicated by the fact that I’ve been getting auto-downvoted by bots. But due to some overly combative COVID related posts my account is in this current state. I’ve found that even researched technical comments of mine will inevitably end up at -1 karma, or struggle to stay above 0. After reaching out to dang about bot-downvoting Daniel was nice enough to look into it and confirmed my account was getting bot-downvoted but also explained that my account had been flagged and made some suggestions on posts that crossed the line. I’ve had a long and mostly enjoyable relationship with HN so hopefully I’ll be out of purgatory soon. To be clear I have no interest in debating whether the feature was misapplied in my own personal case, but rather just it’s abstract technical merits make for great meta-discussion of moderation techniques for social media boards.

hilyen 6y ago
This is generally referred to as shadow banning. When the user is unaware their account is being restricted due to content rules or bot like activities.
billme 6y ago
Agree, I personally feel this is a major issue, in fact recently posted twice about it: Ask HN: HN user ghosted 5 years, why? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23436276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23436276 Ask HN: Dark Patterns on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23439617 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23439617
- bluntfang 6y ago
  love dang's response. He sounds like a cop.
sbierwagen 6y ago
Why would it have to be a bot? If you annoyed someone badly enough, there’s nothing stopping them from camping your comments page and manually downvoting your comments as they appear.
radcon 6y ago
I was going to mention the same thing. This happens on Reddit too. If your posts are unpopular for any reason you're automatically penalized. Doesn't matter if you're right or wrong, you're penalized for posting anything that people disagree with or don't want to hear. That's why sites like Reddit and HN will always be echo chambers. Dissenting voices are automatically silenced. Not 100% of the time, but often enough that most will probably never waste their time posting.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  I find that Reddit is generally much worse about this kind of thing; perhaps it is the culture or maybe it is the fact that votes are public. If you say something people don’t like, they’ll quickly pile on you. For some reason people there really like going with the flow, and you can’t even reply to clarify without them coming after you. I have found it much less likely that this happens on Hacker News, and people are generally more willing to listen to a comment regardless of how others felt about it.
  - catalogia 6y ago
    I don't think it's just reddit, I believe these systems are prone to triggering some primitive human instincts towards group interaction. I can think of a few plausible explanations for a discrepancy in outcomes across HN and reddit. Perhaps hidden scores or the per-comment floor HN uses suppresses it. Perhaps HN attracts a particular sort of personality while reddit attracts a more representative slice of humanity. Maybe reddit is harder to moderate, has worse moderator tools, worse mods, or just too many people. I'm not sure what the answer is, but one way or the other I consider these sort of systems to be failed experiments. > Researchers from Hebrew University, NYU, and MIT explored herd mentality in online spaces, specifically in the context of "digitized, aggregated opinions".[4] Online comments were given an initial positive or negative vote (up or down) on an undisclosed website over five months.[5] The control group comments were left alone. The researchers found that "the first person reading the comment was 32 percent more likely to give it an up vote if it had been already given a fake positive score".[5] Over the five months, comments artificially rated positively showed a 25% higher average score than the control group, with the initial negative vote ending up with no statistical significance in comparison to the control group.[4] The researchers found that "prior ratings created significant bias in individual rating behavior, and positive and negative social influences created asymmetric herding effects".[4] > “That is a significant change”, Dr. Aral, one of the researchers involved in the experiment, stated. “We saw how these very small signals of social influence snowballed into behaviors like herding.”[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_mentality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_mentality
bluntfang 6y ago
technically, aren't you breaking the rules by talking the voting system meta? It's so weird, they ask you not to talk about voting, but then have a feature where you get auto downvoted. How are you not supposed to talk about that?! It makes you feel insane, like someone is following you around. Imagine someone was following you around IRL delegitimizing your experience. Telling people not to believe you. That your opinions are worth less than others. Only the other people can't see that person, they absolutely believe that person, and people think you're crazy for thinking that it's happening.
amcoastal 6y ago
It's called being shadow banned. All your comments are basically auto-flagged. People can see there is a comment there but they have to go into your profile to read it. It's happened to me before, but that's because I would make a bunch of shitposts and thankfully they don't put up with that stuff here. Reading your post makes it seem like you know exactly why you were shadow banned (being overtly combative on HN) no matter the content. Make a new account and act civilized and all will be well. You can also ask nicely to be un-shadow banned.

by zaroth 6y ago

hilyen 6y ago

This is generally referred to as shadow banning. When the user is unaware their account is being restricted due to content rules or bot like activities.

billme 6y ago

Agree, I personally feel this is a major issue, in fact recently posted twice about it: Ask HN: HN user ghosted 5 years, why? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23436276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23436276 Ask HN: Dark Patterns on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23439617 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23439617

bluntfang 6y ago
love dang's response. He sounds like a cop.

sbierwagen 6y ago

Why would it have to be a bot? If you annoyed someone badly enough, there’s nothing stopping them from camping your comments page and manually downvoting your comments as they appear.

radcon 6y ago

I was going to mention the same thing. This happens on Reddit too. If your posts are unpopular for any reason you're automatically penalized. Doesn't matter if you're right or wrong, you're penalized for posting anything that people disagree with or don't want to hear. That's why sites like Reddit and HN will always be echo chambers. Dissenting voices are automatically silenced. Not 100% of the time, but often enough that most will probably never waste their time posting.

saagarjha 6y ago
I find that Reddit is generally much worse about this kind of thing; perhaps it is the culture or maybe it is the fact that votes are public. If you say something people don’t like, they’ll quickly pile on you. For some reason people there really like going with the flow, and you can’t even reply to clarify without them coming after you. I have found it much less likely that this happens on Hacker News, and people are generally more willing to listen to a comment regardless of how others felt about it.
- catalogia 6y ago
  I don't think it's just reddit, I believe these systems are prone to triggering some primitive human instincts towards group interaction. I can think of a few plausible explanations for a discrepancy in outcomes across HN and reddit. Perhaps hidden scores or the per-comment floor HN uses suppresses it. Perhaps HN attracts a particular sort of personality while reddit attracts a more representative slice of humanity. Maybe reddit is harder to moderate, has worse moderator tools, worse mods, or just too many people. I'm not sure what the answer is, but one way or the other I consider these sort of systems to be failed experiments. > Researchers from Hebrew University, NYU, and MIT explored herd mentality in online spaces, specifically in the context of "digitized, aggregated opinions".[4] Online comments were given an initial positive or negative vote (up or down) on an undisclosed website over five months.[5] The control group comments were left alone. The researchers found that "the first person reading the comment was 32 percent more likely to give it an up vote if it had been already given a fake positive score".[5] Over the five months, comments artificially rated positively showed a 25% higher average score than the control group, with the initial negative vote ending up with no statistical significance in comparison to the control group.[4] The researchers found that "prior ratings created significant bias in individual rating behavior, and positive and negative social influences created asymmetric herding effects".[4] > “That is a significant change”, Dr. Aral, one of the researchers involved in the experiment, stated. “We saw how these very small signals of social influence snowballed into behaviors like herding.”[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_mentality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_mentality

bluntfang 6y ago

technically, aren't you breaking the rules by talking the voting system meta? It's so weird, they ask you not to talk about voting, but then have a feature where you get auto downvoted. How are you not supposed to talk about that?! It makes you feel insane, like someone is following you around. Imagine someone was following you around IRL delegitimizing your experience. Telling people not to believe you. That your opinions are worth less than others. Only the other people can't see that person, they absolutely believe that person, and people think you're crazy for thinking that it's happening.

amcoastal 6y ago

It's called being shadow banned. All your comments are basically auto-flagged. People can see there is a comment there but they have to go into your profile to read it. It's happened to me before, but that's because I would make a bunch of shitposts and thankfully they don't put up with that stuff here. Reading your post makes it seem like you know exactly why you were shadow banned (being overtly combative on HN) no matter the content. Make a new account and act civilized and all will be well. You can also ask nicely to be un-shadow banned.