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In the market of ideas you’re failing, and that’s the signal you’re getting. It sounds like you don’t care to adjust to “the crowd”, which is fine, but then yo

by TX81Z 3y ago

In the market of ideas you’re failing, and that’s the signal you’re getting. It sounds like you don’t care to adjust to “the crowd”, which is fine, but then you have to deal with the consequences.

carlosjobim 3y ago
I remember when there were no upvotes and downvotes on forums, and each comment stood on it's own merits. We have to remember that for every user down voting, there are a hundred lurkers just reading. There are also a bunch of activists here on HN as on other forums, who will categorically downvote every comment by certain posters because they maybe wrote something they disagreed with several years ago.
- sanderjd 3y ago
  > There are also a bunch of activists here on HN as on other forums, who will categorically downvote every comment by certain posters because they maybe wrote something they disagreed with several years ago. Interesting. How do you know?
  - kergonath 3y ago
    Confirmation bias. It’s the same in most forums I follow; there is always someone complaining about an imaginary person downvoting everything. Which is always bullshit because even if a couple of posts had one single downvote by the time the comment was written (though there is nothing to say whether this was from a single account), it is never the case if you wait a bit. I guess part of us really want to be against other people and the shady systematic downvoter fills that role. It is always stupid, though. Luckily we don’t get much of that here.
  - krapp 3y ago
    Sometimes you'll make a controversial comment and you'll notice the score on every recent comment you made go down by one. Also I vaguely remember a couple of people here bragging that they had networks of sockpuppets specifically for mass-downvoting, but IDK. This place can certainly be petty enough for that.
    - sanderjd 3y ago
      > Sometimes you'll make a controversial comment and you'll notice the score on every recent comment you made go down by one. Sure, but that's a different phenomenon. If you make a comment that gets a lot of attention, sometimes people will go read a bunch of your other comments. I have also had the opposite of this happen, where I suddenly get upvotes on old comments.
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    Only the admins would have any certain proof of users voting behaviour, but you can deduct things using your own logic. Most of my comments here will get a few upvotes in the beginning after posted and then after a day or two they are downvoted. Completely normal on-topic comments. And if you are familiar with other similar forums with a voting system like Reddit, you know there is no limit to how petty and obsessed people can be online. I never down vote here on HN, because why should I waste my time when I can just move on?
    - sanderjd 3y ago
      This sounds like tilting at windmills to me.
NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
This is not only a "market of ideas", but a virtual world. And in the sense that it is a virtual world, you're also telling him "you can't exist here". Which is a pretty shitty thing to say regardless, but when the real world withers away from us a little more every year, it starts to become monstrous.
- sanderjd 3y ago
  Where does "you can't exist here" come from? I don't think it's common for people who just get downvotes frequently (not flags, but just downvotes) to get kicked off the site (or out of the "virtual world", if you prefer).
  - throw16180339 3y ago
    Many Reddit subreddits use AutoModerator to automatically remove comments by users with substantial negative karma, e.g. -49 or lower. There are definitely false positives, but this policy removes a lot of drive-by troll comments.
    - sanderjd 3y ago
      This is the second time recently that I have been participating in a thread about moderation on HN and people have responded with comments talking about moderation on reddit... I don't get it. We're not talking about reddit here, we're talking about HN.
      - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
        Moderation is moderation. Don't pretend that it is significantly different from place to place. I mean, I guess we can just talk about HN if you want. Yay, circumstances were such that HN moderation isn't as shitty as reddit, and may even remain that way for the lifespan of the site. How long is that anyway? Will HN be around 30 years from now? 5? It's so much smaller, that how many unlucky heart attacks or misfortunately early deaths would derail it? Is that a higher-than-single-digit number? So, any discussion of purely HN moderation (besides those asking for input on policy adjustments) aren't talking about anything long term and pointlessly self-congratulatory.
TX81Z 3y ago
So many replies to this, but to clarify. I think OP has a right to express their opinion, my point is nobody seems to be interested in it which may or may not be a bad thing. I think of votes as a sort of social currency that makes this a fairly observable marketplace of sorts. Perhaps in ten years all of OP comments will seem prescient - who knows? Not my intent to say they are doing anything wrong. If nothing else, shows dedication.

by TX81Z 3y ago

carlosjobim 3y ago

I remember when there were no upvotes and downvotes on forums, and each comment stood on it's own merits. We have to remember that for every user down voting, there are a hundred lurkers just reading. There are also a bunch of activists here on HN as on other forums, who will categorically downvote every comment by certain posters because they maybe wrote something they disagreed with several years ago.

sanderjd 3y ago
> There are also a bunch of activists here on HN as on other forums, who will categorically downvote every comment by certain posters because they maybe wrote something they disagreed with several years ago. Interesting. How do you know?
- kergonath 3y ago
  Confirmation bias. It’s the same in most forums I follow; there is always someone complaining about an imaginary person downvoting everything. Which is always bullshit because even if a couple of posts had one single downvote by the time the comment was written (though there is nothing to say whether this was from a single account), it is never the case if you wait a bit. I guess part of us really want to be against other people and the shady systematic downvoter fills that role. It is always stupid, though. Luckily we don’t get much of that here.
- krapp 3y ago
  Sometimes you'll make a controversial comment and you'll notice the score on every recent comment you made go down by one. Also I vaguely remember a couple of people here bragging that they had networks of sockpuppets specifically for mass-downvoting, but IDK. This place can certainly be petty enough for that.
  - sanderjd 3y ago
    > Sometimes you'll make a controversial comment and you'll notice the score on every recent comment you made go down by one. Sure, but that's a different phenomenon. If you make a comment that gets a lot of attention, sometimes people will go read a bunch of your other comments. I have also had the opposite of this happen, where I suddenly get upvotes on old comments.
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  Only the admins would have any certain proof of users voting behaviour, but you can deduct things using your own logic. Most of my comments here will get a few upvotes in the beginning after posted and then after a day or two they are downvoted. Completely normal on-topic comments. And if you are familiar with other similar forums with a voting system like Reddit, you know there is no limit to how petty and obsessed people can be online. I never down vote here on HN, because why should I waste my time when I can just move on?
  - sanderjd 3y ago
    This sounds like tilting at windmills to me.

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago

This is not only a "market of ideas", but a virtual world. And in the sense that it is a virtual world, you're also telling him "you can't exist here". Which is a pretty shitty thing to say regardless, but when the real world withers away from us a little more every year, it starts to become monstrous.

sanderjd 3y ago
Where does "you can't exist here" come from? I don't think it's common for people who just get downvotes frequently (not flags, but just downvotes) to get kicked off the site (or out of the "virtual world", if you prefer).
- throw16180339 3y ago
  Many Reddit subreddits use AutoModerator to automatically remove comments by users with substantial negative karma, e.g. -49 or lower. There are definitely false positives, but this policy removes a lot of drive-by troll comments.
  - sanderjd 3y ago
    This is the second time recently that I have been participating in a thread about moderation on HN and people have responded with comments talking about moderation on reddit... I don't get it. We're not talking about reddit here, we're talking about HN.
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
      Moderation is moderation. Don't pretend that it is significantly different from place to place. I mean, I guess we can just talk about HN if you want. Yay, circumstances were such that HN moderation isn't as shitty as reddit, and may even remain that way for the lifespan of the site. How long is that anyway? Will HN be around 30 years from now? 5? It's so much smaller, that how many unlucky heart attacks or misfortunately early deaths would derail it? Is that a higher-than-single-digit number? So, any discussion of purely HN moderation (besides those asking for input on policy adjustments) aren't talking about anything long term and pointlessly self-congratulatory.

TX81Z 3y ago

So many replies to this, but to clarify. I think OP has a right to express their opinion, my point is nobody seems to be interested in it which may or may not be a bad thing. I think of votes as a sort of social currency that makes this a fairly observable marketplace of sorts. Perhaps in ten years all of OP comments will seem prescient - who knows? Not my intent to say they are doing anything wrong. If nothing else, shows dedication.