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What bothers me personally the most is the way in which downvotes seem to happen. Don't get me wrong, a lot of users downvote in a good way, so it's not all bad

What bothers me personally the most is the way in which downvotes seem to happen. Don't get me wrong, a lot of users downvote in a good way, so it's not all bad. Still, I often find grey comments that are brought in a completely respectable way. I feel like these comments are getting downvoted because someone disagrees with them, rather than because they are bad or toxic comments. The opposite is also true, I often find comments with a positive amount of votes that are in the "internet jokester" style and don't really contribute anything meaningful to the topic at hand.

jacques_chester 13y ago
Jokester comments (I leave quite a few because I enjoy being a smart-arse) are hit and miss on HN. You can't overplay the joke and you can't use memes. That rules out a lot of easy jokes, so in practice the effective humour is a bit better than the stuff you find on Reddit.
mynameishere 13y ago
A lot of people are hellbanned. The algo seems to take into account the lifespan of the account, and most such banned people have only existed a few weeks.
pseut 13y ago
Often if you go back later, you'll see that the downvote has been "corrected" by another reader. I'll sometimes upvote a reasonable comment only because it has negative karma. And I've... uh... in the name of science, made some relatively useless disagreeable comments that had downvotes, then upvotes, then downvotes,... before reaching equilibrium at +1, so other people do too.
pullo 13y ago
this was precisely the comment i was going to post and you beat me to it :) you run the very real risk of having a bunch of comments that mutually agree to the same point being up voted, while the contrarian post or a different opinion is 'shouted down'. Taking the time to distinguish a comment that you disagree with (may be even dislike ) and a comment you think is unproductive to the discussion is our responsibility. I wish we did a better job at it.

jacques_chester 13y ago

Jokester comments (I leave quite a few because I enjoy being a smart-arse) are hit and miss on HN. You can't overplay the joke and you can't use memes. That rules out a lot of easy jokes, so in practice the effective humour is a bit better than the stuff you find on Reddit.

mynameishere 13y ago

A lot of people are hellbanned. The algo seems to take into account the lifespan of the account, and most such banned people have only existed a few weeks.

pseut 13y ago

Often if you go back later, you'll see that the downvote has been "corrected" by another reader. I'll sometimes upvote a reasonable comment only because it has negative karma. And I've... uh... in the name of science, made some relatively useless disagreeable comments that had downvotes, then upvotes, then downvotes,... before reaching equilibrium at +1, so other people do too.

pullo 13y ago

this was precisely the comment i was going to post and you beat me to it :) you run the very real risk of having a bunch of comments that mutually agree to the same point being up voted, while the contrarian post or a different opinion is 'shouted down'. Taking the time to distinguish a comment that you disagree with (may be even dislike ) and a comment you think is unproductive to the discussion is our responsibility. I wish we did a better job at it.