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Oh, the downvotes are one thing - and I fully concur that many times, individuals espouse points of view that do not gel with the mainstream narrative - and tha

Oh, the downvotes are one thing - and I fully concur that many times, individuals espouse points of view that do not gel with the mainstream narrative - and that is what the downvotes indicate - not necessarily whether someone is 'true' or not, but whether their position is agreed upon by the mainstream masses. But that's not what happens. Get downvoted too much, and you will get the dang hammer brought down on you, and its back to a rate limited life of communication for you. This is the danger of the collective reality. It isn't always the truth - but rather, what everyone thinks the truth is, and we can see time and again just how wrong collectivity can be through history.

aspenmayer 6y ago
> Get downvoted too much, and you will get the dang hammer brought down on you, and its back to a rate limited life of communication for you. I like to think that dang gives us all just a sharp enough edge to his moderation for us to cut ourselves on, but I take your point. I found myself in a flame war, got rate limited by a mod, actually emailed Daniel, got a soft agreement to lift limits in a week or so with good behavior. In his and HN’s defense, I was a bit edgy and I agree it was not an isolated comment but closer to 15 across a couple threads with the same person. I thought I was having a spirited debate at the time and still do, while recognizing that protracted flamewars burn down the users’ and mods’ and admins’ morale and it is a kind of social contagion that self-reinforces negative reactionary behavior among and between users. So that’s to say I agree that I did something unsuitable for HN. What happened next was nothing. For almost a month, I was rate-limited. I just thought I was still letting Daniel down. I had no transparency into my mod action. No mod mail like on reddit. I ended up emailing about something else entirely, and casually mentioned it. Daniel almost didn’t really know what to think. He didn’t do the original action; a mod did. I did email him, but that was like 5 in a thread out of how many he must have to read a day? I sent him our original thread, he read it, and I wasn’t rate-limited anymore. He genuinely forgot. Daniel is too busy to care about anyone’s agenda but keeping the site what it’s meant to be, and trying to build it slowly into what it will become. He’s a good dude. Let’s not make this personal. I only email with him, but I know this much: HN is lucky to have him. Some more transparency into mod and flag actions wouldn’t go astray, either.

aspenmayer 6y ago

> Get downvoted too much, and you will get the dang hammer brought down on you, and its back to a rate limited life of communication for you. I like to think that dang gives us all just a sharp enough edge to his moderation for us to cut ourselves on, but I take your point. I found myself in a flame war, got rate limited by a mod, actually emailed Daniel, got a soft agreement to lift limits in a week or so with good behavior. In his and HN’s defense, I was a bit edgy and I agree it was not an isolated comment but closer to 15 across a couple threads with the same person. I thought I was having a spirited debate at the time and still do, while recognizing that protracted flamewars burn down the users’ and mods’ and admins’ morale and it is a kind of social contagion that self-reinforces negative reactionary behavior among and between users. So that’s to say I agree that I did something unsuitable for HN. What happened next was nothing. For almost a month, I was rate-limited. I just thought I was still letting Daniel down. I had no transparency into my mod action. No mod mail like on reddit. I ended up emailing about something else entirely, and casually mentioned it. Daniel almost didn’t really know what to think. He didn’t do the original action; a mod did. I did email him, but that was like 5 in a thread out of how many he must have to read a day? I sent him our original thread, he read it, and I wasn’t rate-limited anymore. He genuinely forgot. Daniel is too busy to care about anyone’s agenda but keeping the site what it’s meant to be, and trying to build it slowly into what it will become. He’s a good dude. Let’s not make this personal. I only email with him, but I know this much: HN is lucky to have him. Some more transparency into mod and flag actions wouldn’t go astray, either.