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I tend to downvote cases where someone is using very toxic attitudes or disingenuously endorsing toxic things under the guise of fair inquiry. This can take th

by mlthoughts2018 6y ago

I tend to downvote cases where someone is using very toxic attitudes or disingenuously endorsing toxic things under the guise of fair inquiry. This can take the form of “citation needed” or “sources please” bad faith sniped requests for “evidence.” It can also take the form of overtly abusive attitudes, defending things like misogyny or defending repression of different classes of people, for example if someone said something like, “I don’t feel like I have to make my heterosexual identity widely known at work, so I think people with a homosexual identity also should keep it to themselves.” This sort of thing is masqueraded as fair and balanced or “just an opinion” to make it seem like it deserves equal footing or equal consideration, but really this sort of thing is flagrantly uncivil and harmful, and dressing it up like it’s some innocuous comment is one of the worst parts. Unfortunately, I can’t always explain my reasoning for these sorts of downvotes, because the community guidelines of HN are often very, very unfairly enforced, giving a free pass to things that are genuinely horrible yet reprimanding any follow-up comments that call those people out on their toxic bullshit. Sometimes the comments are so bad that I’ll take the risk of misplaced moderator admonition. But usually I just downvote & move on. On technical topics, I will downvote things if they appear uncharitably one-sided or unfairly ridiculing an alternative on unfair grounds. For example I see this a ton in posts focusing on Nim & Julia, where instead of just dispassionately mentioning preferences or benefits, the posts go further to unfairly deride alternatives or make straw man comparisons. I think downvoting is actually quite important for keeping bad commentary off of HN. Very sincerely, there’s a lot of commentary here that is one small step removed from The Red Pill or MRA toxicity, and unfortunately the site guidelines allow it to be treated as if it’s innocuous and fair / civil discourse. I really worry a great deal for HN. As a site that aims to set high standards for community participation, it paints a bleak picture of societal discourse at large and in fact people who stand up for basic social norms and respect are the ones who get unfairly downvoted and admonished.

runawaybottle 6y ago
How would anyone know if you don’t take on the responsibility of downvoting with the requisite explanation? And how would you yourself know you aren’t off base if your reasoning is not put to the same test of being downvoted itself?
- mlthoughts2018 6y ago
  That is a very good point. Unfortunately we would have to wait for moderation standards and guidelines of HN to improve hugely before it can possibly be pursued. I wish it were different, but I’m just one person, and a big mass of the HN commenter population who benefits from the way the guidelines work on these points have no real incentive to push for it to change.
chordalkeyboard 6y ago
> I think downvoting is actually quite important for keeping bad commentary off of HN. Very sincerely, there’s a lot of commentary here that is one small step removed from The Red Pill or MRA toxicity, and unfortunately the site guidelines allow it to be treated as if it’s innocuous and fair / civil discourse. Is it possible that valuable contributions to a discussion could be "one small step removed from" negative, toxic, or detrimental ideas? For example, someone could say "inequality is increasing and its reaching a critical point where we may have to do something about the staggering amount of wealth held by the 1%" or "gun rights were enshrined in the US constitution so that a tyrannical government could be changed by force" which could both be interpreted as a small step from extralegal measures to rectify the situation according to the speaker's values, but may also be interpreted as a justification for legal measures (in the former case) or a recitation of historical fact (in the latter case). I mention this because part of the problem I have observed in social media discussion of controversial issues is that on the one hand, people use certain tropes/memes as signals to invoke a particular perspective and people have responded to this by inferring their interpretation of this reference and jumping to condemning the perspective they believe has been referenced. This makes the discourse seem bizarre to outsiders who lack the requisite background knowledge to make those same inferences and polarizes people by suggesting that some signals are always used to refer to certain perspectives and not others.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  So, now, I think you're getting into an area I like to call "shit you can't say on HN." For example, I think pretty much everybody agrees genocide is bad, and that Stalin committed a good amount of genocide. But, he also brought a feudal, agrarian nation from nothing to launching the first artificial satellite in under 50 years. I'm pretty sure such a comment would be downvoted because "scary genocidal mustache man bad." I can give other examples, if you like.
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    My parent comment is downvoted to -1 already, without reply. That's the evidence that there's something to it. Downvotes and/or flags on either that or this comment would also validate my theory.
bawolff 6y ago
> This can take the form of “citation needed” or “sources please” bad faith sniped requests for “evidence.” What does this mean? I personally think all arguments should be based on logical deduction and evidence, otherwise it turns into a bunch of people just yelling at each other. I guess people can sometimes abuse it. Person A: water is wet, person b: [citation needed], etc or demanding citation for an ancedote about someone's personal experience, but i dont think i see that very often.
- JoshTriplett 6y ago
  > I guess people can sometimes abuse it. Person A: water is wet, person b: [citation needed], etc or demanding citation for an ancedote about someone's personal experience, but i dont think i see that very often. I see this quite often. In particular, a common pattern: Person A: water is wet Person B: [citation needed], you clearly have an agenda Person C: I experienced water and found it to be wet Person B: [citation needed], anecdotes are not data Person D: water is dry (Person B silently clicks to upvote and does not respond, or less subtly, continues the discussion but does not apply the same "standards") Rare meta-discussion follow-up: Hey person B, you seem to be selective in your standards of evidence. Person B: I'm neutral and rational! All of this wastes people's time and energy, and nobody (including B) are going to derive any value from any further responses to B's comments. The generous interpretation: Person B is fooling themselves into thinking they're being rational by asking for evidence instead of saying "nuh-uh!", but they don't realize they're only asking that of statements that bother them, and they're unlikely to actually change their mind regardless of the amount of evidence. The less generous version: Person B knows exactly what they're doing, but is playing neutral to waste people's time and effort. Versions of this pattern, with more incendiary topics in place of the humidity of dihydrogen monoxide, appear often.
teh_klev 6y ago
> This can take the form of “citation needed” or “sources please” bad faith sniped requests for “evidence.” If someone makes claims (extraordinary or not), then they should be able to back them up with evidence. Asking for a citation or evidence is pretty much fine as far as I'm concerned.
- mlthoughts2018 6y ago
  It really depends. If you’re just trying to DDoS the other person because, unless they exert superhuman effort to track down evidence for claims you believe are extraordinary, you will dismiss their point unduly. Why can’t you do the research for their argument, for example? It’s not their obligation to do so. Further if you self-reflect and still really believe their point is incredulous without bolstering evidence, why not just say nothing? What possible value is it to add a sniping comment like “uhm, citation needed”? It’s plainly not contributing anything, solely looking for the evidence challenge itself to bring some kind of undercutting rhetorical flair, which is frankly worse than making uncorroborated, but civil, claims (because others can fact check them for themselves).
  - teh_klev 6y ago
    >It’s not their obligation to do so. I respectfully disagree. If you're making claims, especially in a discussion that is perhaps contentious or controversial, it is absolutely your responsibility to back up these claims. We shouldn't have to do all the work to decide if true or to begin debunking them, especially if the evidence for your claims come from unreliable and shady sources. If the response is "just google it", or "the facts are out there" then I'm flipping the bozo-bit on you.
    - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
      It doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree. Nobody owes you any sources. If you choose to dismiss what someone else says (instead of researching it) that is totally fine, but they don’t owe you that. If you respond to them by saying “citation needed” you’re not helping. Number one, your claim that a citation is needed might be wrong - they might not actually need to provide sources because their point is extremely widely proved already or is extremely easy to verify. Just because you think the claim needs evidence doesn’t make it so. Number two, requesting a citation doesn’t refute what the other person said. It might be true. But because humans use various heuristics that are still rooted in tribal in-group or out-group thinking, it will be perceived like a “win” or like you “got them” and people will keep a mental tally, so the rhetorical effect actually worsens the quality of discourse. When I see someone saying “citation needed” it immediately tells me (a) they are too lazy to research it for themselves, (b) they are too lazy to steelman the argument and engage it assuming it’s valid, (c) they are too lazy to produce their own counter-argument and (d) they want “credit” for “winning” the other side of the argument, but without actually contributing anything that answers whether the claim is true. Of course, people posting tons of claims that don’t have evidence also come off badly - but the right thing to do is either ignore them, steelman their argument or provide a counter-argument. Pedantically demanding evidence is worse, even assuming that strong claims should have strong evidence. It harms discourse more.
briandear 6y ago
> As a site that aims to set high standards for community participation, it paints a bleak picture of societal discourse at large and in fact people who stand up for basic social norms and respect are the ones who get unfairly downvoted and admonished. Ironic when you bemoan the discourse but then downvote discourse with which you disagree. If we followed your lead, HN would become an echo chamber. Why shouldn’t MRA, as an example, be part of the discourse when the topic is appropriate? If anything, it provides a contrast and intelligent people can make their own decisions based on the arguments. And your comments about red pill stuff indicates that you don’t actually want “discourse” that goes against your own biases. And “bad commentary?” What is that exactly? Commentary that counters your beliefs? Let’s take a contrived example. If we discuss minimum wage and someone opposes it, it would seem that would be downvoted because the mere thought of such of thing is deemed offensive, merits of the argument be damned. By downvoting something, you are essentially saying “this should not be on HN” because the results of excessive downvotes means that the comment is literally greyed out. If the only thing that should be on HN is an opinion with which you agree, then what’s the point? It becomes an echo chamber. If someone supports Trump and makes a contextually relevant comment about that, it gets downvoted because we aren’t supposed to like Trump. It gets classed as “bad commentary” when in fact, it could be extremely relevant commentary even if you happen to disagree with the conclusions or reasoning. The very term misogyny itself is extremely loaded. Opposing women diversity initiatives isn’t necessarily misogynistic, but even expressing such an opinion gets downvoted without even addressing the substance of the argument. It’s the equivalent of a child sticking his fingers in his ears and singing la la la when encountering an idea that he doesn’t which to hear. Climate change is another good example, expressing any skepticism about the default view is met with downvotes — yet scientific debate is supposed to be filled with skepticism rather than dogma. Climate skeptics are treated as flat-earthers despite there being light years of difference between the observable fact of a round earth and the debatable theory that using a car warms the earth. Trying to compare an extraordinary complex system like the climate to a simple observable fact that there is no edge of the earth is designed to marginalize dissenting views by comparing them with an absurd view. It’s like discussing religion at this point. No amount of convincing will change someone’s mind about their chosen god. Even broaching the subject is met with downvotes. But science isn’t religion yet on certain topics, there is a religious-like faith that any competing evidence is automatically “bad commentary.” Imagine if the bad commentary argument were listened to when it came to genetics. Lysenkoism would be considered “scientific fact.” In the Soviet Union Lysenkoism was law. Eugenics was another place where the term “settled science” got used a lot. The political support of Eugenics made an indelible mark on early 20th century science and public policy. It too was “settled science” and those opposed would have been downvoted in the 1915 version of Hacker News. Dogmatic downvoting is a poison of HN. It’s pointless to discuss anything if the discussion consists of simply variations of agreement.

runawaybottle 6y ago

How would anyone know if you don’t take on the responsibility of downvoting with the requisite explanation? And how would you yourself know you aren’t off base if your reasoning is not put to the same test of being downvoted itself?

mlthoughts2018 6y ago
That is a very good point. Unfortunately we would have to wait for moderation standards and guidelines of HN to improve hugely before it can possibly be pursued. I wish it were different, but I’m just one person, and a big mass of the HN commenter population who benefits from the way the guidelines work on these points have no real incentive to push for it to change.

chordalkeyboard 6y ago

> I think downvoting is actually quite important for keeping bad commentary off of HN. Very sincerely, there’s a lot of commentary here that is one small step removed from The Red Pill or MRA toxicity, and unfortunately the site guidelines allow it to be treated as if it’s innocuous and fair / civil discourse. Is it possible that valuable contributions to a discussion could be "one small step removed from" negative, toxic, or detrimental ideas? For example, someone could say "inequality is increasing and its reaching a critical point where we may have to do something about the staggering amount of wealth held by the 1%" or "gun rights were enshrined in the US constitution so that a tyrannical government could be changed by force" which could both be interpreted as a small step from extralegal measures to rectify the situation according to the speaker's values, but may also be interpreted as a justification for legal measures (in the former case) or a recitation of historical fact (in the latter case). I mention this because part of the problem I have observed in social media discussion of controversial issues is that on the one hand, people use certain tropes/memes as signals to invoke a particular perspective and people have responded to this by inferring their interpretation of this reference and jumping to condemning the perspective they believe has been referenced. This makes the discourse seem bizarre to outsiders who lack the requisite background knowledge to make those same inferences and polarizes people by suggesting that some signals are always used to refer to certain perspectives and not others.

pmiller2 6y ago
So, now, I think you're getting into an area I like to call "shit you can't say on HN." For example, I think pretty much everybody agrees genocide is bad, and that Stalin committed a good amount of genocide. But, he also brought a feudal, agrarian nation from nothing to launching the first artificial satellite in under 50 years. I'm pretty sure such a comment would be downvoted because "scary genocidal mustache man bad." I can give other examples, if you like.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  My parent comment is downvoted to -1 already, without reply. That's the evidence that there's something to it. Downvotes and/or flags on either that or this comment would also validate my theory.

bawolff 6y ago

> This can take the form of “citation needed” or “sources please” bad faith sniped requests for “evidence.” What does this mean? I personally think all arguments should be based on logical deduction and evidence, otherwise it turns into a bunch of people just yelling at each other. I guess people can sometimes abuse it. Person A: water is wet, person b: [citation needed], etc or demanding citation for an ancedote about someone's personal experience, but i dont think i see that very often.

JoshTriplett 6y ago
> I guess people can sometimes abuse it. Person A: water is wet, person b: [citation needed], etc or demanding citation for an ancedote about someone's personal experience, but i dont think i see that very often. I see this quite often. In particular, a common pattern: Person A: water is wet Person B: [citation needed], you clearly have an agenda Person C: I experienced water and found it to be wet Person B: [citation needed], anecdotes are not data Person D: water is dry (Person B silently clicks to upvote and does not respond, or less subtly, continues the discussion but does not apply the same "standards") Rare meta-discussion follow-up: Hey person B, you seem to be selective in your standards of evidence. Person B: I'm neutral and rational! All of this wastes people's time and energy, and nobody (including B) are going to derive any value from any further responses to B's comments. The generous interpretation: Person B is fooling themselves into thinking they're being rational by asking for evidence instead of saying "nuh-uh!", but they don't realize they're only asking that of statements that bother them, and they're unlikely to actually change their mind regardless of the amount of evidence. The less generous version: Person B knows exactly what they're doing, but is playing neutral to waste people's time and effort. Versions of this pattern, with more incendiary topics in place of the humidity of dihydrogen monoxide, appear often.

teh_klev 6y ago

> This can take the form of “citation needed” or “sources please” bad faith sniped requests for “evidence.” If someone makes claims (extraordinary or not), then they should be able to back them up with evidence. Asking for a citation or evidence is pretty much fine as far as I'm concerned.

mlthoughts2018 6y ago
It really depends. If you’re just trying to DDoS the other person because, unless they exert superhuman effort to track down evidence for claims you believe are extraordinary, you will dismiss their point unduly. Why can’t you do the research for their argument, for example? It’s not their obligation to do so. Further if you self-reflect and still really believe their point is incredulous without bolstering evidence, why not just say nothing? What possible value is it to add a sniping comment like “uhm, citation needed”? It’s plainly not contributing anything, solely looking for the evidence challenge itself to bring some kind of undercutting rhetorical flair, which is frankly worse than making uncorroborated, but civil, claims (because others can fact check them for themselves).
- teh_klev 6y ago
  >It’s not their obligation to do so. I respectfully disagree. If you're making claims, especially in a discussion that is perhaps contentious or controversial, it is absolutely your responsibility to back up these claims. We shouldn't have to do all the work to decide if true or to begin debunking them, especially if the evidence for your claims come from unreliable and shady sources. If the response is "just google it", or "the facts are out there" then I'm flipping the bozo-bit on you.
  - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
    It doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree. Nobody owes you any sources. If you choose to dismiss what someone else says (instead of researching it) that is totally fine, but they don’t owe you that. If you respond to them by saying “citation needed” you’re not helping. Number one, your claim that a citation is needed might be wrong - they might not actually need to provide sources because their point is extremely widely proved already or is extremely easy to verify. Just because you think the claim needs evidence doesn’t make it so. Number two, requesting a citation doesn’t refute what the other person said. It might be true. But because humans use various heuristics that are still rooted in tribal in-group or out-group thinking, it will be perceived like a “win” or like you “got them” and people will keep a mental tally, so the rhetorical effect actually worsens the quality of discourse. When I see someone saying “citation needed” it immediately tells me (a) they are too lazy to research it for themselves, (b) they are too lazy to steelman the argument and engage it assuming it’s valid, (c) they are too lazy to produce their own counter-argument and (d) they want “credit” for “winning” the other side of the argument, but without actually contributing anything that answers whether the claim is true. Of course, people posting tons of claims that don’t have evidence also come off badly - but the right thing to do is either ignore them, steelman their argument or provide a counter-argument. Pedantically demanding evidence is worse, even assuming that strong claims should have strong evidence. It harms discourse more.

briandear 6y ago

> As a site that aims to set high standards for community participation, it paints a bleak picture of societal discourse at large and in fact people who stand up for basic social norms and respect are the ones who get unfairly downvoted and admonished. Ironic when you bemoan the discourse but then downvote discourse with which you disagree. If we followed your lead, HN would become an echo chamber. Why shouldn’t MRA, as an example, be part of the discourse when the topic is appropriate? If anything, it provides a contrast and intelligent people can make their own decisions based on the arguments. And your comments about red pill stuff indicates that you don’t actually want “discourse” that goes against your own biases. And “bad commentary?” What is that exactly? Commentary that counters your beliefs? Let’s take a contrived example. If we discuss minimum wage and someone opposes it, it would seem that would be downvoted because the mere thought of such of thing is deemed offensive, merits of the argument be damned. By downvoting something, you are essentially saying “this should not be on HN” because the results of excessive downvotes means that the comment is literally greyed out. If the only thing that should be on HN is an opinion with which you agree, then what’s the point? It becomes an echo chamber. If someone supports Trump and makes a contextually relevant comment about that, it gets downvoted because we aren’t supposed to like Trump. It gets classed as “bad commentary” when in fact, it could be extremely relevant commentary even if you happen to disagree with the conclusions or reasoning. The very term misogyny itself is extremely loaded. Opposing women diversity initiatives isn’t necessarily misogynistic, but even expressing such an opinion gets downvoted without even addressing the substance of the argument. It’s the equivalent of a child sticking his fingers in his ears and singing la la la when encountering an idea that he doesn’t which to hear. Climate change is another good example, expressing any skepticism about the default view is met with downvotes — yet scientific debate is supposed to be filled with skepticism rather than dogma. Climate skeptics are treated as flat-earthers despite there being light years of difference between the observable fact of a round earth and the debatable theory that using a car warms the earth. Trying to compare an extraordinary complex system like the climate to a simple observable fact that there is no edge of the earth is designed to marginalize dissenting views by comparing them with an absurd view. It’s like discussing religion at this point. No amount of convincing will change someone’s mind about their chosen god. Even broaching the subject is met with downvotes. But science isn’t religion yet on certain topics, there is a religious-like faith that any competing evidence is automatically “bad commentary.” Imagine if the bad commentary argument were listened to when it came to genetics. Lysenkoism would be considered “scientific fact.” In the Soviet Union Lysenkoism was law. Eugenics was another place where the term “settled science” got used a lot. The political support of Eugenics made an indelible mark on early 20th century science and public policy. It too was “settled science” and those opposed would have been downvoted in the 1915 version of Hacker News. Dogmatic downvoting is a poison of HN. It’s pointless to discuss anything if the discussion consists of simply variations of agreement.