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Some form of this is happening to me on hackernews as we speak. A long time ago, I had a lot of karma, almost a thousand. I was a model citizen for HN. But at

by xwdv 6y ago

Some form of this is happening to me on hackernews as we speak. A long time ago, I had a lot of karma, almost a thousand. I was a model citizen for HN. But at some point, I must have posted a controversial opinion, and then HN decided they wanted to cancel me. If it wasn’t for a downvote limit per post, my karma would be below zero by now. Instead it has dwindled and deteriorated slowly over time, trending toward nothing. Nothing I do will move the needle to recover my karma, I’ve simply accepted that someday my karma will be so low that I’ll be shadow banned forever. Part of this is my own fault, as my posting habits changed to more bitter and cynical tones as a result of knowing that no matter what I say I will accrue inexplicable downvotes, so why spend effort softening my words? But it’s amazing that sometimes a completely mundane post suddenly has -4 downvotes out of nowhere. I wish I could see a plot of my karma over time, and know the exact point it all went wrong, so that perhaps I could learn and conform a bit better to the popular opinion. Unfortunately I know of no such tool.

Yaa101 6y ago
Same here, it is like some people on here take any chance to down vote you at any given opportunity over mundane stuff.
AnimalMuppet 6y ago
If you think someone is systematically downvoting you, you could email dang and ask him to look for a pattern of who's doing the downvoting. I'm sure he has the tools to do that. I'm also sure that stalking someone to downvote all their posts is against at least the spirit of HN, and probably against the letter of some of the guidelines.
- skinkestek 6y ago
  Seconded. It might take a couple of days to get an answer but I always get one. As mentioned above I took a look at the first few pages of your lates comments and I too felt there might be something in your case. That said I also do expect HN to have scripts to detect serial downvoters and automatic voting.
skinkestek 6y ago
> But it’s amazing that sometimes a completely mundane post suddenly has -4 downvotes out of nowhere. Wow, just checked your history going back a while and in your case it seems to be more than usual..! Not saying I agree or that the posts are high quality but you seem to be hit unreasonably hard at times.
WalterGR 6y ago
"HN decided they wanted to cancel me." I've never heard of you. What does it mean that "HN decided"? Looking at your comments over the past 14 days, every one that's grey can be explained by enough people legitimately disagreeing with you to make them grey.
- themacguffinman 6y ago
  AFAIK "legitimately disagreeing with you" is not supposed to be a reason to downvote. In practice this clearly happens often anyway, especially in political topics where it's likely harder to distinguish between wrong/misleading/hostile and regular political disagreement.
  - WalterGR 6y ago
    This comes up a lot. Paul Graham commented that downvoting for disagreement is fine. People sometimes link to the comment but I don’t have it bookmarked. Hopefully it has some nuance, like downvoting someone because their favorite movie isn’t your favorite movie is rude.
    - themacguffinman 6y ago
      Oh TIL. I found Paul Graham's comment saying this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171
      - WalterGR 6y ago
        That’s the one!
qqqwerty 6y ago
My anecdotal experience, HN upvotes informative, constructive, and positive comments. And it downvotes negative/cynical, political, or unsubstantive comments. I have had comments with very similar arguments, but different delivery receive very different treatment. Also, if you are trying to recover karma, stick to the less controversial topics. It is near impossible to get downvoted when providing informative comments on more tech/programming oriented topics. Alternatively, create a throwaway account for the controversial threads. Added bonus is that switching accounts will give you a nice pause to rethink whether commenting on said thread is really worth it in the first place.
deleted 6y ago
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by xwdv 6y ago

Yaa101 6y ago

Same here, it is like some people on here take any chance to down vote you at any given opportunity over mundane stuff.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago

If you think someone is systematically downvoting you, you could email dang and ask him to look for a pattern of who's doing the downvoting. I'm sure he has the tools to do that. I'm also sure that stalking someone to downvote all their posts is against at least the spirit of HN, and probably against the letter of some of the guidelines.

skinkestek 6y ago
Seconded. It might take a couple of days to get an answer but I always get one. As mentioned above I took a look at the first few pages of your lates comments and I too felt there might be something in your case. That said I also do expect HN to have scripts to detect serial downvoters and automatic voting.

skinkestek 6y ago

> But it’s amazing that sometimes a completely mundane post suddenly has -4 downvotes out of nowhere. Wow, just checked your history going back a while and in your case it seems to be more than usual..! Not saying I agree or that the posts are high quality but you seem to be hit unreasonably hard at times.

WalterGR 6y ago

"HN decided they wanted to cancel me." I've never heard of you. What does it mean that "HN decided"? Looking at your comments over the past 14 days, every one that's grey can be explained by enough people legitimately disagreeing with you to make them grey.

themacguffinman 6y ago
AFAIK "legitimately disagreeing with you" is not supposed to be a reason to downvote. In practice this clearly happens often anyway, especially in political topics where it's likely harder to distinguish between wrong/misleading/hostile and regular political disagreement.
- WalterGR 6y ago
  This comes up a lot. Paul Graham commented that downvoting for disagreement is fine. People sometimes link to the comment but I don’t have it bookmarked. Hopefully it has some nuance, like downvoting someone because their favorite movie isn’t your favorite movie is rude.
  - themacguffinman 6y ago
    Oh TIL. I found Paul Graham's comment saying this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171
    - WalterGR 6y ago
      That’s the one!

qqqwerty 6y ago

My anecdotal experience, HN upvotes informative, constructive, and positive comments. And it downvotes negative/cynical, political, or unsubstantive comments. I have had comments with very similar arguments, but different delivery receive very different treatment. Also, if you are trying to recover karma, stick to the less controversial topics. It is near impossible to get downvoted when providing informative comments on more tech/programming oriented topics. Alternatively, create a throwaway account for the controversial threads. Added bonus is that switching accounts will give you a nice pause to rethink whether commenting on said thread is really worth it in the first place.

deleted 6y ago

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