4 ms·

There is a really frustrating thing happening on this thread where people are downvoting answers that are technically correct, which suggests they must be simpl

There is a really frustrating thing happening on this thread where people are downvoting answers that are technically correct, which suggests they must be simply disagreeing with the writers opinion on underlying politics. That is a sad way for hn to go.

ARandomerDude 6y ago
It's been that way for a very long time. I get down-voted if I say anything from a conservative perspective here.
- ciarannolan 6y ago
  I believe you when you say that you notice you get down voted for expressing a conservative view on HN, but I seem to notice the opposite. HN has a way of defending Trump and quickly down voting direct criticism of conservatives, at least in my own n=1 experience. edit: ...and this comment was flagged. Case in point.
  - ufmace 6y ago
    Well I find that a bit odd. But I vouched your comment anyways, because I think it's better to discuss these things than try to flag and ban the other side.
    - ciarannolan 6y ago
      Agreed! I upvoted both of your comments too.
  - ARandomerDude 6y ago
    Conservative != Trump. I actually never say anything about Trump (breaking the rule here), because: (1) conservative ideas don't depend on Trump for their origin or continuance (2) Trump isn't really that conservative anyway, and (3) he is such a polarizing figure that it's almost impossible to have a rational conversation (with either side) once you mention him.
  - dang 6y ago
    You guys are probably both running into the notice-dislike bias: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... I can give you long, long lists of commenters complaining with complete certainty in the bitterest terms that HN is extremely biased in favor of $side and the mods are totally biased in favor of $side, but $side varies entirely with the political feelings of the perceiver. This is one of the most reliable phenomena that exists on HN. I wrote a long thing about this earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23530467 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23530467.
    - ciarannolan 6y ago
      That's interesting, thanks for linking your comment. I believe it 100%, which is why I tried to discount my own claim too ("n=1" etc). >We don't see the world as it is, but as we are.
- ufmace 6y ago
  I've managed to be upvoted for saying conservative things more often than not here. You do have to pick your battles a bit and be careful how you say things, avoid responding to hostile vitriol with more of the same, be mindful of what will likely play well with a libertarian-ish hacker crowd, etc, but it can be done. I've also seen some weird post score swings, like mildly pro-Trump things going down to -3, then back up to +3. We know there's a lot of orgs out there actively trying to influence social media, I wonder if any of them have downvote farms or bots pointed at HN? I'd be disappointed to learn that real HN regulars just reflexively downvote like that. I don't see the suspect downvotes that grandparent sees though. Maybe gone already?
jmkerr 6y ago
The original question was deliberately and unnecessarily politically 'loaded' in a manner to demonstrate ignorance about things relating to EU politics. It's basically a sport on the internet. > Whatever the intent of the GDPR was, the practical result is that now I have to click away the annoying "we're using cookies" popup on every website. "Whatever the intent of docker was, the practical result is that now my computer runs slower. (Thanks Obama.)"

ARandomerDude 6y ago

It's been that way for a very long time. I get down-voted if I say anything from a conservative perspective here.

ciarannolan 6y ago
I believe you when you say that you notice you get down voted for expressing a conservative view on HN, but I seem to notice the opposite. HN has a way of defending Trump and quickly down voting direct criticism of conservatives, at least in my own n=1 experience. edit: ...and this comment was flagged. Case in point.
- ufmace 6y ago
  Well I find that a bit odd. But I vouched your comment anyways, because I think it's better to discuss these things than try to flag and ban the other side.
  - ciarannolan 6y ago
    Agreed! I upvoted both of your comments too.
- ARandomerDude 6y ago
  Conservative != Trump. I actually never say anything about Trump (breaking the rule here), because: (1) conservative ideas don't depend on Trump for their origin or continuance (2) Trump isn't really that conservative anyway, and (3) he is such a polarizing figure that it's almost impossible to have a rational conversation (with either side) once you mention him.
- dang 6y ago
  You guys are probably both running into the notice-dislike bias: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... I can give you long, long lists of commenters complaining with complete certainty in the bitterest terms that HN is extremely biased in favor of $side and the mods are totally biased in favor of $side, but $side varies entirely with the political feelings of the perceiver. This is one of the most reliable phenomena that exists on HN. I wrote a long thing about this earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23530467 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23530467.
  - ciarannolan 6y ago
    That's interesting, thanks for linking your comment. I believe it 100%, which is why I tried to discount my own claim too ("n=1" etc). >We don't see the world as it is, but as we are.
ufmace 6y ago
I've managed to be upvoted for saying conservative things more often than not here. You do have to pick your battles a bit and be careful how you say things, avoid responding to hostile vitriol with more of the same, be mindful of what will likely play well with a libertarian-ish hacker crowd, etc, but it can be done. I've also seen some weird post score swings, like mildly pro-Trump things going down to -3, then back up to +3. We know there's a lot of orgs out there actively trying to influence social media, I wonder if any of them have downvote farms or bots pointed at HN? I'd be disappointed to learn that real HN regulars just reflexively downvote like that. I don't see the suspect downvotes that grandparent sees though. Maybe gone already?

jmkerr 6y ago

The original question was deliberately and unnecessarily politically 'loaded' in a manner to demonstrate ignorance about things relating to EU politics. It's basically a sport on the internet. > Whatever the intent of the GDPR was, the practical result is that now I have to click away the annoying "we're using cookies" popup on every website. "Whatever the intent of docker was, the practical result is that now my computer runs slower. (Thanks Obama.)"