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Agree completely. While in theory I completely agree downvotes should be around, in practice I have seen they are an ideological voting machine used to suppres

Agree completely. While in theory I completely agree downvotes should be around, in practice I have seen they are an ideological voting machine used to suppress opinions. It is kind of unusual how fast the downvotes appear, as if there are downvote bots running on the HN & Reddit. I've posted a comment and had what appeared to be 3 downvotes within a minute. Of course, I am an evidence driven technologist that is not very partisan so that could explain some of it.

detaro 5y ago
I always find the assumption that quick reactions are "bots" a bit weird. If I click on an active discussion, some comments will be "0 minutes" old (like yours right now, although it won't be when I submit this comment, because typing takes time - but downvoting doesn't). If I click on "comments" tab on HN, all comments there are new. So it's not particularly surprising that many people see your comment very shortly after it is posted on an active site like HN and react to it immediately.
- bserge 5y ago
  They're not bots. Bots act on logic, however simple it is. These are mostly people who disengaged their brain.
  - detaro 5y ago
    How do you figure that? Plenty cases where "would I downvote that" is not something you need to think a lot about, so "quick" != "disengaged brain".
    - bserge 5y ago
      Long history participating in and analyzing discussions on Reddit.
bserge 5y ago
If a comment that requires at least some thinking does not have a simple TLDR, preferably as the first line, you're going to get downvotes on Reddit and Imgur. People just aren't there to think and they have this "weapon" that they can use to shoo away anything they don't immediately understand. It's even more ridiculous that simple one sentence or better yet, one meme comments get drives of upvotes. You can easily automate that. Just copy and paste comments in the same thread, mix with some meme comments, and you're halfway to an account with high karma. Begs the question, why bother participating in this bottom of the barrel mindwankery? Nothing but an addiction these days. I say Reddit, but that platform is really a lot of smaller forums with useful information, even if you have to wade through some shit. Imgur on the other hand, I finally couldn't stand the sheer idiocy and quit. It's amazing, and I wish I could quit this site and Reddit, too.

detaro 5y ago

I always find the assumption that quick reactions are "bots" a bit weird. If I click on an active discussion, some comments will be "0 minutes" old (like yours right now, although it won't be when I submit this comment, because typing takes time - but downvoting doesn't). If I click on "comments" tab on HN, all comments there are new. So it's not particularly surprising that many people see your comment very shortly after it is posted on an active site like HN and react to it immediately.

bserge 5y ago
They're not bots. Bots act on logic, however simple it is. These are mostly people who disengaged their brain.
- detaro 5y ago
  How do you figure that? Plenty cases where "would I downvote that" is not something you need to think a lot about, so "quick" != "disengaged brain".
  - bserge 5y ago
    Long history participating in and analyzing discussions on Reddit.

bserge 5y ago

If a comment that requires at least some thinking does not have a simple TLDR, preferably as the first line, you're going to get downvotes on Reddit and Imgur. People just aren't there to think and they have this "weapon" that they can use to shoo away anything they don't immediately understand. It's even more ridiculous that simple one sentence or better yet, one meme comments get drives of upvotes. You can easily automate that. Just copy and paste comments in the same thread, mix with some meme comments, and you're halfway to an account with high karma. Begs the question, why bother participating in this bottom of the barrel mindwankery? Nothing but an addiction these days. I say Reddit, but that platform is really a lot of smaller forums with useful information, even if you have to wade through some shit. Imgur on the other hand, I finally couldn't stand the sheer idiocy and quit. It's amazing, and I wish I could quit this site and Reddit, too.