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Your claim is fallacious. It is not rooted in any formal study of HN voters or voting outcomes. It is just a story HN members tell themselves to feel special. R

Your claim is fallacious. It is not rooted in any formal study of HN voters or voting outcomes. It is just a story HN members tell themselves to feel special. Reality is, HN is like every other social media platform, and feelings deeply influence voting around here. IMO it is obvious.

mdp2021 5y ago
There is little need for formal studies. HN is very surely different from «other social media platform[s]»: you must have never been on Reddit or YT, to provide examples of diametrically opposite places. A quick look at information density and "where the uttering came from" (say, above the neck, below the hips or other guts) should clearly show a massive, radical difference. That feelings influence voting, in terms of "hear, hear" or "thank you", is not undesirable: it is still agreement on reasoning. Expression of disagreement through downvoting is limited already through a technical limitation, which also contributes to indicate the form. Some foolish snipers (hitting without leaving any justification) are around: bad apples are not curbed, also because it apparently is not a mission for HN to create an optimal system of moderation and debate. In fact, there are several shortcomings to adopt HN as a model for moderation and debate - it was evidently not the objective. But civilization wise, there is no comparison with many other places. By the way: > a story HN members tell themselves to feel special Please. Accusing others to have unclean grounds in their evaluations, gratuitously? And, when one is "special", it is not out of some free membership that confirmation comes.
- moistly 5y ago
  Whatever you gotta tell yourself, I guess. Feel special!
  - mdp2021 5y ago
    Our individual CVs, skills and perks are none of your business. In fact, back to the point, HN is very surely different from other places because this comment of yours has no whatsoever place here. That you afford to utter it confirms your misunderstanding of the place: you must have not read the guidelines properly, nor have verified them vis-a-vis the actual threads.
    - moistly 5y ago
      Never asked for shit from you, buddy, so feel free to keep your biz your biz. Back to the point, after thirty-two years of hanging out in BBS networks, Usenet, and dozens of web social media sites, I see nothing special about HNs denizens, other than an inflated sense of their own worth. This site has as many idiots and blowhards as any other.
      - dang 5y ago
        Sorry to pile on the scolding I already posted (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28963043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28963043), but I don't think this description of HN users is either accurate or fair. You can find samples of anything in any large-enough sample, but the median HN user doesn't say that they're special, and we certainly would never claim such a thing. Comments like this are one reason why we added this guideline: "Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." I can appreciate the reasons for supercilious putdowns on the internet, but they make for lousy conversation. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        moistly 5y ago
        “Here it is not about how you feel: it is about whether you make sense” claims specialness and, yes, I took the bait. Sorry.
        dang 5y ago
        Thanks for the kind reply. I know that people sometimes say such things, but they're a tiny minority of HN users. I cringe inwardly when I hear them, and I'm probably oversensitive on the point.
        mdp2021 5y ago
        Hi Daniel. Sorry but I do not quite understand your point. It seems like you are censoring my statement «Here it is not about how you feel: it is about whether you make sense», and you found it cringeful - it even seems like you state you are glad "my position represents a minority". I am also interested in your "sensitivity", also (not just in terms of sheer human relation) because I do not quite understand what "touches" you in that direction. I have not yet managed to read (all) pg's interventions. I just read though that according to him "down arrows [can be used to] express agreement". As I tried to observe formerly, though, this contrasts with the direction of "reasoning". If one just "felt" disagreement, but cannot justify it (or will not out of laziness), there will be no progress, no discussion, no quality. The guidelines, I a pretty sure, specify to warn against cheapness, and there is very little cheaper than one's statement "I disagree [end of statement]". What are we debating for if disagreement is not rationalized? I was pretty sure we are meant to be reasoning here, not to do some expressive "performance art". (Note: which I do myself, as an aside luxury, always taking care though that the intellectual structure it accompanies appears solid. Never alone, never without the important bits attached.) What I tried to express in fact to the user that seems obsessed about the idea that some "feel special", in my last intervention, is that "expression of "feeling" will be consistent with this apparent framework when it will be expressed within a rational framework, which will allow it to be managed within a discussion". Without that, it will not be "information exchange, insight and debate": it will be noise. The very fact that on average we restrain ourselves from joking, to try to keep density high, is indicative. The quality of debates here are completely different from what you can find elsewhere: as mentioned, for example, YT and Reddit - where noise and low quality are abysmally huge. What is the filter that causes that increase, if not that using the "head" is promoted here instead of lower bits? (It was a rhetoric formula: I am sure it is that.) To quote Daniel G. (read somewhere else), "We are just trying to build a [cannot remember term] that does not suck". It is the direction of consistency with "intellectual curiosity" which is granting that.
  - dang 5y ago
    Please don't be an asshole in HN comments, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. You've done this repeatedly (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28673020 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28673020), and that's not cool. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

mdp2021 5y ago

There is little need for formal studies. HN is very surely different from «other social media platform[s]»: you must have never been on Reddit or YT, to provide examples of diametrically opposite places. A quick look at information density and "where the uttering came from" (say, above the neck, below the hips or other guts) should clearly show a massive, radical difference. That feelings influence voting, in terms of "hear, hear" or "thank you", is not undesirable: it is still agreement on reasoning. Expression of disagreement through downvoting is limited already through a technical limitation, which also contributes to indicate the form. Some foolish snipers (hitting without leaving any justification) are around: bad apples are not curbed, also because it apparently is not a mission for HN to create an optimal system of moderation and debate. In fact, there are several shortcomings to adopt HN as a model for moderation and debate - it was evidently not the objective. But civilization wise, there is no comparison with many other places. By the way: > a story HN members tell themselves to feel special Please. Accusing others to have unclean grounds in their evaluations, gratuitously? And, when one is "special", it is not out of some free membership that confirmation comes.

moistly 5y ago
Whatever you gotta tell yourself, I guess. Feel special!
- mdp2021 5y ago
  Our individual CVs, skills and perks are none of your business. In fact, back to the point, HN is very surely different from other places because this comment of yours has no whatsoever place here. That you afford to utter it confirms your misunderstanding of the place: you must have not read the guidelines properly, nor have verified them vis-a-vis the actual threads.
  - moistly 5y ago
    Never asked for shit from you, buddy, so feel free to keep your biz your biz. Back to the point, after thirty-two years of hanging out in BBS networks, Usenet, and dozens of web social media sites, I see nothing special about HNs denizens, other than an inflated sense of their own worth. This site has as many idiots and blowhards as any other.
    - dang 5y ago
      Sorry to pile on the scolding I already posted (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28963043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28963043), but I don't think this description of HN users is either accurate or fair. You can find samples of anything in any large-enough sample, but the median HN user doesn't say that they're special, and we certainly would never claim such a thing. Comments like this are one reason why we added this guideline: "Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." I can appreciate the reasons for supercilious putdowns on the internet, but they make for lousy conversation. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - moistly 5y ago
        “Here it is not about how you feel: it is about whether you make sense” claims specialness and, yes, I took the bait. Sorry.
        dang 5y ago
        Thanks for the kind reply. I know that people sometimes say such things, but they're a tiny minority of HN users. I cringe inwardly when I hear them, and I'm probably oversensitive on the point.
        mdp2021 5y ago
        Hi Daniel. Sorry but I do not quite understand your point. It seems like you are censoring my statement «Here it is not about how you feel: it is about whether you make sense», and you found it cringeful - it even seems like you state you are glad "my position represents a minority". I am also interested in your "sensitivity", also (not just in terms of sheer human relation) because I do not quite understand what "touches" you in that direction. I have not yet managed to read (all) pg's interventions. I just read though that according to him "down arrows [can be used to] express agreement". As I tried to observe formerly, though, this contrasts with the direction of "reasoning". If one just "felt" disagreement, but cannot justify it (or will not out of laziness), there will be no progress, no discussion, no quality. The guidelines, I a pretty sure, specify to warn against cheapness, and there is very little cheaper than one's statement "I disagree [end of statement]". What are we debating for if disagreement is not rationalized? I was pretty sure we are meant to be reasoning here, not to do some expressive "performance art". (Note: which I do myself, as an aside luxury, always taking care though that the intellectual structure it accompanies appears solid. Never alone, never without the important bits attached.) What I tried to express in fact to the user that seems obsessed about the idea that some "feel special", in my last intervention, is that "expression of "feeling" will be consistent with this apparent framework when it will be expressed within a rational framework, which will allow it to be managed within a discussion". Without that, it will not be "information exchange, insight and debate": it will be noise. The very fact that on average we restrain ourselves from joking, to try to keep density high, is indicative. The quality of debates here are completely different from what you can find elsewhere: as mentioned, for example, YT and Reddit - where noise and low quality are abysmally huge. What is the filter that causes that increase, if not that using the "head" is promoted here instead of lower bits? (It was a rhetoric formula: I am sure it is that.) To quote Daniel G. (read somewhere else), "We are just trying to build a [cannot remember term] that does not suck". It is the direction of consistency with "intellectual curiosity" which is granting that.
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't be an asshole in HN comments, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. You've done this repeatedly (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28673020 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28673020), and that's not cool. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html