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And this sort of comment is exactly what's wrong with HN. You could have made these same points more effectively without baiting the person you're replying to.

by pg 13y ago

foobarbazqux 13y ago
All you have to do is issue a decree that encourages people to upvote civility and downvote incivility, as opposed to the current standard which says upvote agreement and downvote disagreement. People upvoted this guy because they agreed with his fundamental points despite the baiting, and in turn he received positive feedback. I think maybe you underestimate the effect karma has on posting behavior; it's not just about pushing comments up and down the page.
- icelancer 13y ago
  >All you have to do is issue a decree that encourages people to upvote civility and downvote incivility, as opposed to the current standard which says upvote agreement and downvote disagreement. This doesn't matter. Doesn't work on reddit, doesn't work on StackOverflow, and won't work anywhere else.
  - foobarbazqux 13y ago
    I'd be interested in reading more about that if you have a link. Reddit says to "moderate based on quality, not opinion" whereas PG said explicitly to do the opposite. (I can't remember how to find the link atm, but it was a comment in some thread on HN that I've seen people refer to.) http://www.reddit.com/wiki/reddiquette http://www.reddit.com/wiki/reddiquette I also found this discussion, which says that in practice there will always be a middle ground between moderating based on quality and moderating based on opinion: http://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/1g14yo/is_there_anybody_on_reddit_who_honestly_believes/ http://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/1g14yo/is_th... because our ego bias is to moderate based on opinion. However that's why a guideline to moderate based on quality pulls things towards the middle.

And this sort of comment is exactly what's wrong with HN. You could have made these same points more effectively without baiting the person you're replying to.

by pg 13y ago

And this sort of comment is exactly what's wrong with HN. You could have made these same points more effectively without baiting the person you're replying to.

foobarbazqux 13y ago

All you have to do is issue a decree that encourages people to upvote civility and downvote incivility, as opposed to the current standard which says upvote agreement and downvote disagreement. People upvoted this guy because they agreed with his fundamental points despite the baiting, and in turn he received positive feedback. I think maybe you underestimate the effect karma has on posting behavior; it's not just about pushing comments up and down the page.

icelancer 13y ago
>All you have to do is issue a decree that encourages people to upvote civility and downvote incivility, as opposed to the current standard which says upvote agreement and downvote disagreement. This doesn't matter. Doesn't work on reddit, doesn't work on StackOverflow, and won't work anywhere else.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  I'd be interested in reading more about that if you have a link. Reddit says to "moderate based on quality, not opinion" whereas PG said explicitly to do the opposite. (I can't remember how to find the link atm, but it was a comment in some thread on HN that I've seen people refer to.) http://www.reddit.com/wiki/reddiquette http://www.reddit.com/wiki/reddiquette I also found this discussion, which says that in practice there will always be a middle ground between moderating based on quality and moderating based on opinion: http://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/1g14yo/is_there_anybody_on_reddit_who_honestly_believes/ http://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/1g14yo/is_th... because our ego bias is to moderate based on opinion. However that's why a guideline to moderate based on quality pulls things towards the middle.