4 ms·

The 500 point karma limit should probably be inflation adjusted as well.

zepearl 5y ago
But then probably it should rather be the points that get assigned that would have to be adjusted rather than the thresholds? Reason: if I e.g. got 1 point 2 years ago, that point had at that time more value (less users than today) than the 1 point that I might get today? (therefore today I should maybe get just 0.5 points per upvote instead of the 1 point that I got 2 years ago, depending on the difference of active users throughout time) The other approach of just raising the thresholds would on the other hand impact all my points independently from "when" I got them, which sounds wrong to me.
- midasuni 5y ago
  Many years ago I learnt the difference between less and fewer, and now I can’t read or hear someone saying “less than” when it ‘should be’ ”fewer than” It’s like Roko’s Basilisk. Or The Game (which I just lost), living rent free in my mind, offering nothing of value, yet immune from bleaching - indeed alcohol if anything heightens it’s power (and causing rambling asides, I think ki should go back to torturing myself with Lithuania’s Eurovision entry)
  - zepearl 5y ago
    > now I can’t read or hear someone saying “less than” when it ‘should be’ ”fewer than” Thank you! I love such corrections. I'll try to keep that in mind :) > i should go back to torturing myself with Lithuania’s Eurovision entry Hehe, I have that show running in the background - I was just thinking that the presentation of the songs got more extreme compared to previous years... . Sorry, I overlooked Lithuania. Edit: saw a few seconds of replay of Lithuania - it seemed okay-ish (better than others).
  - beckingz 5y ago
    memetic viruses are real. Infohazards should not be taken lightly. What has been seen cannot be unseen. However, it's worth taking all that lightly because correcting people's grammar is a suboptimal social strategy.
waiseristy 5y ago
I think that the downvote mechanism should just be removed and the flag cap moved to 500. It's just become a mechanism to remove controversial topics from conversation. HN used to have some very off-the-wall libertarian voices which incited some interesting conversations. Now everything just gets downvoted into oblivion unless you are Mainstream Approved Another interesting point as I sit here and watch this comment literally 'fade' into the echo chamber. Why is it that HN signals immediately when comments go below the 1 point threshold, yet hides upvotes? It seems like HN encourages the bandwagon effect on downward pressure only
- Taek 5y ago
  I do think the downvote button contributes considerably to shutting down things like pun threads and low effort comedic jabs. It's always sad to see someone who is making a good faith effort to have an interesting conversation get drowned in downvotes, but on the net I think the downvote does more good than harm.
  - waiseristy 5y ago
    From Dang : > The purpose of flagging is to indicate that a story does not belong on HN. Frivolous flagging—e.g. flagging a story that's clearly on-topic by the site guidelines just because one personally dislikes it—eventually gets an account's flagging privileges taken away. > Flagging of comments is important, too. If you see a comment that breaks the HN guidelines, such as by being uncivil, you should flag it. But there's one extra hoop to jump through in the comment case: you have to click on the comment's timestamp to go to its page, then click 'flag' at the top. That's a speed bump to dampen impulsive flagging. I honestly think the opposite, downvotes are the perfect target for our knee-jerk lizard-brain response to things we don't like. Flagging and reporting are a much more community focused approach to moderation, requiring people to actually think about why they are removing a person from the conversation
- nanidin 5y ago
  > I think that the downvote mechanism should just be removed Why? I think this approach makes an assumption that everyone is upvoting everything that they would not downvote. I upvote things I find interesting or insightful, and I do my part in terms of moderation by downvoting comments that don't have a good fit for HN. What I see on Facebook and Twitter is that the inability for the hivemind to have some kind of downward pressure mechanism on comments encourages/enables polarizing comments by vocal minorities to rise to the top. I see this frequently in the comments on the posts of local political figures. The top comments shown are almost always controversial and unhelpful/unproductive - things like whataboutism, blatantly racist remarks, etc. Eventually I got tired of constantly catching myself up in arms over FB comments and stopped participating. The only way I see to counteract this as a rank-and-file user is to upvote/like every single comment except for the ones that are hurting actual discourse. IMO this will drive away people that you ultimately want to be participating on HN.
gnicholas 5y ago
Karma doesn't accumulate linearly. I don't know exactly how it works, but certainly for articles I've posted it's true. It might get 300 points but your karma only increases by 200. I don't know if this non-linearity has changed over time, but it could certainly be used to achieve this effect. And to be clear for others who are wondering what happens at 500 points, it's a threshold for being able to downvote, not a limit per se.

But then probably it should rather be the points that get assigned that would have to be adjusted rather than the thresholds? Reason: if I e.g. got 1 point 2 years ago, that point had at that time more value (less users than today) than the 1 point that I might get today? (therefore today I should maybe get just 0.5 points per upvote instead of the 1 point that I got 2 years ago, depending on the difference of active users throughout time) The other approach of just raising the thresholds would on the other hand impact all my points independently from "when" I got them, which sounds wrong to me.

midasuni 5y ago
Many years ago I learnt the difference between less and fewer, and now I can’t read or hear someone saying “less than” when it ‘should be’ ”fewer than” It’s like Roko’s Basilisk. Or The Game (which I just lost), living rent free in my mind, offering nothing of value, yet immune from bleaching - indeed alcohol if anything heightens it’s power (and causing rambling asides, I think ki should go back to torturing myself with Lithuania’s Eurovision entry)
- zepearl 5y ago
  > now I can’t read or hear someone saying “less than” when it ‘should be’ ”fewer than” Thank you! I love such corrections. I'll try to keep that in mind :) > i should go back to torturing myself with Lithuania’s Eurovision entry Hehe, I have that show running in the background - I was just thinking that the presentation of the songs got more extreme compared to previous years... . Sorry, I overlooked Lithuania. Edit: saw a few seconds of replay of Lithuania - it seemed okay-ish (better than others).
- beckingz 5y ago
  memetic viruses are real. Infohazards should not be taken lightly. What has been seen cannot be unseen. However, it's worth taking all that lightly because correcting people's grammar is a suboptimal social strategy.

waiseristy 5y ago

I think that the downvote mechanism should just be removed and the flag cap moved to 500. It's just become a mechanism to remove controversial topics from conversation. HN used to have some very off-the-wall libertarian voices which incited some interesting conversations. Now everything just gets downvoted into oblivion unless you are Mainstream Approved Another interesting point as I sit here and watch this comment literally 'fade' into the echo chamber. Why is it that HN signals immediately when comments go below the 1 point threshold, yet hides upvotes? It seems like HN encourages the bandwagon effect on downward pressure only

Taek 5y ago
I do think the downvote button contributes considerably to shutting down things like pun threads and low effort comedic jabs. It's always sad to see someone who is making a good faith effort to have an interesting conversation get drowned in downvotes, but on the net I think the downvote does more good than harm.
- waiseristy 5y ago
  From Dang : > The purpose of flagging is to indicate that a story does not belong on HN. Frivolous flagging—e.g. flagging a story that's clearly on-topic by the site guidelines just because one personally dislikes it—eventually gets an account's flagging privileges taken away. > Flagging of comments is important, too. If you see a comment that breaks the HN guidelines, such as by being uncivil, you should flag it. But there's one extra hoop to jump through in the comment case: you have to click on the comment's timestamp to go to its page, then click 'flag' at the top. That's a speed bump to dampen impulsive flagging. I honestly think the opposite, downvotes are the perfect target for our knee-jerk lizard-brain response to things we don't like. Flagging and reporting are a much more community focused approach to moderation, requiring people to actually think about why they are removing a person from the conversation
nanidin 5y ago
> I think that the downvote mechanism should just be removed Why? I think this approach makes an assumption that everyone is upvoting everything that they would not downvote. I upvote things I find interesting or insightful, and I do my part in terms of moderation by downvoting comments that don't have a good fit for HN. What I see on Facebook and Twitter is that the inability for the hivemind to have some kind of downward pressure mechanism on comments encourages/enables polarizing comments by vocal minorities to rise to the top. I see this frequently in the comments on the posts of local political figures. The top comments shown are almost always controversial and unhelpful/unproductive - things like whataboutism, blatantly racist remarks, etc. Eventually I got tired of constantly catching myself up in arms over FB comments and stopped participating. The only way I see to counteract this as a rank-and-file user is to upvote/like every single comment except for the ones that are hurting actual discourse. IMO this will drive away people that you ultimately want to be participating on HN.

gnicholas 5y ago

Karma doesn't accumulate linearly. I don't know exactly how it works, but certainly for articles I've posted it's true. It might get 300 points but your karma only increases by 200. I don't know if this non-linearity has changed over time, but it could certainly be used to achieve this effect. And to be clear for others who are wondering what happens at 500 points, it's a threshold for being able to downvote, not a limit per se.