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An alternative, much simpler explanation is that people downvote comments which they don't think are fitting for HN or don't provoke good discussion. I don't ca

An alternative, much simpler explanation is that people downvote comments which they don't think are fitting for HN or don't provoke good discussion. I don't care about the ruling, but I do think some of the comments here are more fitting for Reddit than HN. In general though, I don't get taking issue with comment votes, it's just random internet points on a screen.

randomdata 3y ago
I'm not sure that stands up. 'Votes' are always positive feedback to the one on the receiving end. Assuming HN (or Reddit, or whatever) successfully filters bot activity, they provide indication that there are people in the vicinity of the comment and therefore it is likely that the comment is being read. Which is the reason why one comes to a forum and not to a private journal. As there is no formal analytics system, getting feedback (button presses, replies, etc.) is the only way to know you are contributing something that a larger community is taking in. And such feedback is what encourages contributing more. If there was something that the community doesn't like, naturally they would hide the fact that a community exist. No votes, no replies, no nothing. When one feels like they are simply writing in a private journal, they will grow bored of their activity pretty quickly. As the old adage goes: Don't feed the trolls.
VancouverMan 3y ago
> In general though, I don't get taking issue with comment votes, it's just random internet points on a screen. Most of the time, I want to be able to easily read each and every comment that was posted, regardless of what some other random people may think about those comments. I find it annoying how the votes and flagging can affect the appearance/visibility of a comment here. Downvoted comments are rendered in dimmer text, which makes the comments harder to read. I also have to log in so the "showdead" setting takes effect, just so I can see comments that were flagged and hidden. I wish I could use this site with all of the voting/flagging/content-hiding "functionality" disabled, ideally without having to log in and otherwise overriding the default behaviour.

randomdata 3y ago

I'm not sure that stands up. 'Votes' are always positive feedback to the one on the receiving end. Assuming HN (or Reddit, or whatever) successfully filters bot activity, they provide indication that there are people in the vicinity of the comment and therefore it is likely that the comment is being read. Which is the reason why one comes to a forum and not to a private journal. As there is no formal analytics system, getting feedback (button presses, replies, etc.) is the only way to know you are contributing something that a larger community is taking in. And such feedback is what encourages contributing more. If there was something that the community doesn't like, naturally they would hide the fact that a community exist. No votes, no replies, no nothing. When one feels like they are simply writing in a private journal, they will grow bored of their activity pretty quickly. As the old adage goes: Don't feed the trolls.

VancouverMan 3y ago

> In general though, I don't get taking issue with comment votes, it's just random internet points on a screen. Most of the time, I want to be able to easily read each and every comment that was posted, regardless of what some other random people may think about those comments. I find it annoying how the votes and flagging can affect the appearance/visibility of a comment here. Downvoted comments are rendered in dimmer text, which makes the comments harder to read. I also have to log in so the "showdead" setting takes effect, just so I can see comments that were flagged and hidden. I wish I could use this site with all of the voting/flagging/content-hiding "functionality" disabled, ideally without having to log in and otherwise overriding the default behaviour.