4 ms·

'Fairness' has no relevance when it comes to a site's participants deciding among themselves what is and is not worth discussing. Perhaps those posts and comma

by evgen 6y ago

'Fairness' has no relevance when it comes to a site's participants deciding among themselves what is and is not worth discussing. Perhaps those posts and commands that were flagged or downvoted were considered less legitimate than you might have suspected by the rest of the userbase. <insert xkcd 1357 here>

throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
IDK. Guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Be kind. Please don't sneer Please don't post shallow dismissals But downvotes are sometimes used unkindly, dismissively and as a way to supress a different view (which may or may not be justified). You nuke me and say why, I'm happy - we can talk! I can learn something new! Downvoting factual posts silently is... frustrating. And ill mannered.
- krageon 6y ago
  In aggregate downvoted posts are practically always low-effort (or sometimes just really unhinged or otherwise patently wrong), so I'm not convinced that downvotes being used unkindly is a big problem.
  - droffel 6y ago
    Downvoting is also restricted to accounts who exceed a point threshold. I think that particular feature (ensuring people who can downvote at least have some level of trust within the site) has been critical to prevent hive mind-style downvoting. I rarely see downvoted comments where I don't understand why they were downvoted.
    - gingerlime 6y ago
      perhaps ironic, but can you help me understand why the GP comment was downvoted on this thread? I’m genuinely wondering. (the one from throwaway_pdp09) I’m definitely happy that there’s minimum Karma for downvotes, but how does it prevent hive-mind downvoting?
      - krageon 6y ago
        At a guess, it's a post that implies a sort of soft conspiracy with very little evidence. It just doesn't contribute a whole lot of value to the subject at hand, except for attempting to foment a vague sense of wrongness.
        throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
        I'm the poster of that. Regarding evidence, I copied bits from the HN guidelines, said that downvotes are OK if I know why cos they bring benefit, then got silently downvoted. Is that not evidence enough? BTW I can't downvote myself. It was an honestly made critique and suffered from exactly what I protested against. If I was wrong, your response does not elucidate why, in fact let me quote bits back to you "soft conspiracy" ... "very little evidence"[0] ... "a vague sense of wrongness" Well maybe but your post has less substance than mine. [0] you didn't ask for any BTW
    - marketingPro 6y ago
      That is not a good indicator. Your mind can always rationalize something. Imagine if a large corporation bought ~50 old accounts and spoofed different computers/browsers. Only 5 votes is needed to hide a post. Controlling the narrative is almost trivial if you can spend mere thousands of dollars.

by evgen 6y ago

throwaway_pdp09 6y ago

IDK. Guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Be kind. Please don't sneer Please don't post shallow dismissals But downvotes are sometimes used unkindly, dismissively and as a way to supress a different view (which may or may not be justified). You nuke me and say why, I'm happy - we can talk! I can learn something new! Downvoting factual posts silently is... frustrating. And ill mannered.

krageon 6y ago
In aggregate downvoted posts are practically always low-effort (or sometimes just really unhinged or otherwise patently wrong), so I'm not convinced that downvotes being used unkindly is a big problem.
- droffel 6y ago
  Downvoting is also restricted to accounts who exceed a point threshold. I think that particular feature (ensuring people who can downvote at least have some level of trust within the site) has been critical to prevent hive mind-style downvoting. I rarely see downvoted comments where I don't understand why they were downvoted.
  - gingerlime 6y ago
    perhaps ironic, but can you help me understand why the GP comment was downvoted on this thread? I’m genuinely wondering. (the one from throwaway_pdp09) I’m definitely happy that there’s minimum Karma for downvotes, but how does it prevent hive-mind downvoting?
    - krageon 6y ago
      At a guess, it's a post that implies a sort of soft conspiracy with very little evidence. It just doesn't contribute a whole lot of value to the subject at hand, except for attempting to foment a vague sense of wrongness.
      - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
        I'm the poster of that. Regarding evidence, I copied bits from the HN guidelines, said that downvotes are OK if I know why cos they bring benefit, then got silently downvoted. Is that not evidence enough? BTW I can't downvote myself. It was an honestly made critique and suffered from exactly what I protested against. If I was wrong, your response does not elucidate why, in fact let me quote bits back to you "soft conspiracy" ... "very little evidence"[0] ... "a vague sense of wrongness" Well maybe but your post has less substance than mine. [0] you didn't ask for any BTW
  - marketingPro 6y ago
    That is not a good indicator. Your mind can always rationalize something. Imagine if a large corporation bought ~50 old accounts and spoofed different computers/browsers. Only 5 votes is needed to hide a post. Controlling the narrative is almost trivial if you can spend mere thousands of dollars.