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Can the person who downvoted this tell me why? I want to learn.

ToValueFunfetti 3y ago
We're discouraged from discussing downvotes, but I have seen a lot of totally innocuous comments get greyed out lately. I'm suspicious that some are deliberately abusing the feature. I wouldn't worry about it.
- Baeocystin 3y ago
  FWIW, I've noticed an uptick of that, too. Not sure what to make of it.
  - Sabinus 3y ago
    There's been an influx of users since the Reddit snafu, I think they're just settling in. Might just be my perception, but I've seen the tone of the average comment shift a bit.
    - Baeocystin 3y ago
      I didn't make that connection until you mentioned it, but it makes sense. I bet you're right.
primax 3y ago
Because there are a large cohort of Googlers and Xooglers here who are resolutely in denial that their golden goose is not dying, and they insist it is in fact fine. Whereas nearly any knowledge worker using Google daily for the past decade can attest to it's rapid decline in quality.
- GreymanTheGrey 3y ago
  Even spouses of Googlers suffer from this malady occasionally. I have a close friend who has a wife working for Google as a tech writer, and every time the subject of Google's decline in search quality comes up he passionately defends them as light years ahead of the competition, untouchable, always on the edge of innovation, etc. I really don't get where it comes from, it's just a company - not a religion!
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    Funny, I see the problem in the opposite direction. Google results seem perfectly fine to me, and I know they have metrics that track how well it performs. And it's their golden goose, so it doesn't make any business sense that they wouldn't maintain its quality. The "religion" seems, to me, to be people who keep insisting its results are getting worse. And I don't get it, because I just don't see it at all in my own experience. As far as I can tell, it's just anti-Google bias or something. This thread has someone else asking for actual examples of where Google gives bad results and other search engines are great. And once again, nobody seems to be able to provide any. If Google really were declining, you'd think people would have put together objective evidence around it, because it'd be a heck of a news story.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      There are a lot of queries where it insists that the results come from common websites like Reddit or major media outlets. Smaller websites don't show up even if they have more relevant content. There others where the results are all SEO content marketing spam. The thing it rarely seems capable of doing now is showing legitimate non-spam content from smaller websites. It also used to be possible when you were looking for a specific web page you've already seen, to type in a bunch of terms that you know are on that page and then it comes right up because it's the one page with all of those terms together. That doesn't seem to work anymore.
    - barrysteve 3y ago
      How can you collect evidence when you don't save all your searches and search results offline? You'd think google could run it's classic algorithm to show it hasn't changed...
    - GreymanTheGrey 3y ago
      Lots of things that don't make a great deal of business sense still nevertheless occur in large corporations. Frequently. I'm not sure that's a useful metric by which to judge a situation. I personally didn't reply to that other poster, simply because their tone suggested (to me) that they were more looking for an argument than a civil debate. Yours is very different, and thank you for that. This is something I'd genuinely like to bottom out, because from my perspective there's been a noticeable, ongoing decline in the quality of search results from Google. So, challenge accepted. Here's an example for you, and it's not even that subjective: Run a Google search that includes a minus term and tell me how effective the search results are in regards to obeying that instruction. That was a feature I used on a daily basis until Google made it completely non-functional. If you want an example that doesn't rely on specific features, trying searching for "<thing you might want to buy> review". Enjoy the avalanche of low-quality SEO and link spam you're about to receive. Also consider the fact that many searches you perform on Google are already offered with a "reddit" suffix, because so many people can only find the information they're looking for by appending that term to their search. Google by itself just cannot find what you want any more. If that's not enough for you and you want specific examples, that's certainly possible. I was searching for a solution to a programming related problem on Google just a few days ago, and came up empty-handed after 20+ frustrating minutes of it including "related" search terms that weren't relevant. Reconstructing that search wouldn't be terribly difficult, if there were an indication the effort was worthwhile. In the end I went to ChatGPT and got my answer, including a fully-functional example, in less than 30 seconds. An experience that is becoming more and more the norm as time goes on.
rjh29 3y ago
You got downvoted because your comment is pretentious. The nuance is difficult, but basically it's because you said "computer-literate". Your comment makes the suggestion that anyone who is computer-literate ought to be using Yandex/DDG, and if they are still using Google, then they are stupid. A better comment would be "I've been using Yandex/DDG lately and the results are much better than Google!". That's just your experience or opinion - not judging other people or suggesting that they are stupid.
- simbolit 3y ago
  Thank you. I wrote the comment initially without it, then thought about how many people don't even know there are alternative search engines, and added "computer-literate" to make clear I am not talking about normies, but people here on HN. I can now see how my comment can be read as pretentious.
slater 3y ago
I downvoted because of what others responded. To put it another way, in keeping with the perceived tone of your post "Basically for all search queries I can imagine", maybe your imagination sucks? (not attacking you personally, just doing this for illustration) k, thx for the downvotes :D
flangola7 3y ago
Because it is not true. I have never found a page that was on duck duck go but not google, but the reverse occurs daily.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

We're discouraged from discussing downvotes, but I have seen a lot of totally innocuous comments get greyed out lately. I'm suspicious that some are deliberately abusing the feature. I wouldn't worry about it.

Baeocystin 3y ago
FWIW, I've noticed an uptick of that, too. Not sure what to make of it.
- Sabinus 3y ago
  There's been an influx of users since the Reddit snafu, I think they're just settling in. Might just be my perception, but I've seen the tone of the average comment shift a bit.
  - Baeocystin 3y ago
    I didn't make that connection until you mentioned it, but it makes sense. I bet you're right.

primax 3y ago

Because there are a large cohort of Googlers and Xooglers here who are resolutely in denial that their golden goose is not dying, and they insist it is in fact fine. Whereas nearly any knowledge worker using Google daily for the past decade can attest to it's rapid decline in quality.

GreymanTheGrey 3y ago
Even spouses of Googlers suffer from this malady occasionally. I have a close friend who has a wife working for Google as a tech writer, and every time the subject of Google's decline in search quality comes up he passionately defends them as light years ahead of the competition, untouchable, always on the edge of innovation, etc. I really don't get where it comes from, it's just a company - not a religion!
- crazygringo 3y ago
  Funny, I see the problem in the opposite direction. Google results seem perfectly fine to me, and I know they have metrics that track how well it performs. And it's their golden goose, so it doesn't make any business sense that they wouldn't maintain its quality. The "religion" seems, to me, to be people who keep insisting its results are getting worse. And I don't get it, because I just don't see it at all in my own experience. As far as I can tell, it's just anti-Google bias or something. This thread has someone else asking for actual examples of where Google gives bad results and other search engines are great. And once again, nobody seems to be able to provide any. If Google really were declining, you'd think people would have put together objective evidence around it, because it'd be a heck of a news story.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    There are a lot of queries where it insists that the results come from common websites like Reddit or major media outlets. Smaller websites don't show up even if they have more relevant content. There others where the results are all SEO content marketing spam. The thing it rarely seems capable of doing now is showing legitimate non-spam content from smaller websites. It also used to be possible when you were looking for a specific web page you've already seen, to type in a bunch of terms that you know are on that page and then it comes right up because it's the one page with all of those terms together. That doesn't seem to work anymore.
  - barrysteve 3y ago
    How can you collect evidence when you don't save all your searches and search results offline? You'd think google could run it's classic algorithm to show it hasn't changed...
  - GreymanTheGrey 3y ago
    Lots of things that don't make a great deal of business sense still nevertheless occur in large corporations. Frequently. I'm not sure that's a useful metric by which to judge a situation. I personally didn't reply to that other poster, simply because their tone suggested (to me) that they were more looking for an argument than a civil debate. Yours is very different, and thank you for that. This is something I'd genuinely like to bottom out, because from my perspective there's been a noticeable, ongoing decline in the quality of search results from Google. So, challenge accepted. Here's an example for you, and it's not even that subjective: Run a Google search that includes a minus term and tell me how effective the search results are in regards to obeying that instruction. That was a feature I used on a daily basis until Google made it completely non-functional. If you want an example that doesn't rely on specific features, trying searching for "<thing you might want to buy> review". Enjoy the avalanche of low-quality SEO and link spam you're about to receive. Also consider the fact that many searches you perform on Google are already offered with a "reddit" suffix, because so many people can only find the information they're looking for by appending that term to their search. Google by itself just cannot find what you want any more. If that's not enough for you and you want specific examples, that's certainly possible. I was searching for a solution to a programming related problem on Google just a few days ago, and came up empty-handed after 20+ frustrating minutes of it including "related" search terms that weren't relevant. Reconstructing that search wouldn't be terribly difficult, if there were an indication the effort was worthwhile. In the end I went to ChatGPT and got my answer, including a fully-functional example, in less than 30 seconds. An experience that is becoming more and more the norm as time goes on.

rjh29 3y ago

You got downvoted because your comment is pretentious. The nuance is difficult, but basically it's because you said "computer-literate". Your comment makes the suggestion that anyone who is computer-literate ought to be using Yandex/DDG, and if they are still using Google, then they are stupid. A better comment would be "I've been using Yandex/DDG lately and the results are much better than Google!". That's just your experience or opinion - not judging other people or suggesting that they are stupid.

simbolit 3y ago
Thank you. I wrote the comment initially without it, then thought about how many people don't even know there are alternative search engines, and added "computer-literate" to make clear I am not talking about normies, but people here on HN. I can now see how my comment can be read as pretentious.

slater 3y ago

I downvoted because of what others responded. To put it another way, in keeping with the perceived tone of your post "Basically for all search queries I can imagine", maybe your imagination sucks? (not attacking you personally, just doing this for illustration) k, thx for the downvotes :D

flangola7 3y ago

Because it is not true. I have never found a page that was on duck duck go but not google, but the reverse occurs daily.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]