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I'm starting to experience this personally [1] [2]. in the past two weeks, my posts are getting systematically buried by people that disagree with me. In respon

I'm starting to experience this personally [1] [2]. in the past two weeks, my posts are getting systematically buried by people that disagree with me. In response, I've been trying to make more controversial posts. I have a decent amount of karma to burn (lost 10 points in 2 days), but I'm definitely seeing a trend. Politically unpopular opinions have been downvoted to all hell, but I am unable to be sure if this isn't just the people in the conversation with me downvoting my posts. I have, however, been scraping the bottom of the comment barrel, and have found quite a few gems that were clearly buried due to disagreements with the premise of the post, rather than the HN guidelines. my basic rule of thumb is: upvote everything I reply to, whether or not I disagree. if I see grey text, and it isn't an obvious troll (or meets the criteria kevinskii talks about), I upvote. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8434094 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8434094 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8417226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8417226

krapp 12y ago
I've seen a number of interesting threads which inevitably end up with the first post blotted out to near-oblivion, and about half of it in various states of erasure. Hacker News seems designed to select for intellectual novelty rather than conversation. It's unfortunate that disagreement even for petty reasons acts as a global censor. Different groups of people downvoting whatever they personally think is uninteresting, irrelevant or wrong gets in the way of the site's utility for everyone else.
- anonbanker 12y ago
  and is completely against the HN guidelines. what are rules when everyone breaks them without caring?
  - DanBC 12y ago
    Please can you link to which bit of the HN guideliens that you think are being broken by downvoters?
    - anonbanker 12y ago
      You have enlightened me: there are no guidelines on downvoting. at all. that's fairly terrible, IMO. I guess I should expect downvoting to be an ungregulated wild west, and accept the spiteful downvoting that comes with it. I understand this sounds sarcastic, but I'm being serious.
  - krapp 12y ago
    The rules are not what people seem to think they are. I've seen enough threads where people claim the subject is not "HN material" in which it has to be pointed out to them (by dang usually) that, in fact, this is not just a forum for technology, startup culture or 'hacking' however you define it. The community has become large and diverse enough that there's a good chance quite a few people will find a subject of interest which you don't care for. This doesn't mean that Hacker News is necessarily declining in quality, but rather it means your particular biases are no longer as normative as you once thought. Hacker News material is defined entirely as whatever gets upvoted, that's the system, it's no more or less meritocratic than that. But people seem to find it an affront when some stories make it to the top of the heap, as if they got there by cheating.
    - anonbanker 12y ago
      You're right. the rules aren't what I thought they were either. I'm adjusting my views accordingly. I rarely care about "non-hn" stories making it to the front page; discussions on HN were more important than the links themselves. I wonder if I'm in the minority there.
DanBC 12y ago
I would guess that in [2] you were downvoted for incomprehensibility and then, in the reply posts in that sub-thread, for tone. It does seem a bit odd to say that you have been experimenting with bad postig style and to then complain that people have downvoted you because of it. > rather than the HN guidelines. Please could you link to the bit of guidelines that you're talking about?
- anonbanker 12y ago
  > you were downvoted for incomprehensibility see, that's the funny part. it was a thread about the right to remain silent, and I was explaining that Silence = consent/agreement. when I brought the other poster's silence up as agreement, I was buried to -3. Did you have a problem comprehending my post, with the point of the discussion in mind? do you believe the moderation was fair (main post was at 0)? I fully accept that I am attempting to be controversial. I usually don't state my actual opinions for fear of being downvoted. But now that I have sufficient karma to avoid hellbanning (for at least a while), I figured I could give experimenting with moderation habits a try by speaking thing I believe. > Please could you link to the bit of guidelines that you're talking about? see my other reply to you. You were absolutely correct about there being no regulation for when/when not to downvote. EDIT: tried to explain controversial opinions a little
  - anonbanker 12y ago
    also, seeing as you're paying attention, here's[1] another one I'm watching get downvoted due to disagreement. Do you think the moderation is appropriate? 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8434094 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8434094
    - kevinskii 12y ago
      In this comment you offered the same theory about "pump and dump" that many others had over an hour earlier. It wasn't anything new. And the idea that Apple's demise would lead to the rise of Ubuntu is, well, let's just again say that I didn't (and won't) downvote you.
maxerickson 12y ago
I can't downvote replies to my posts. I guess most people can't. Of course you can't be sure if people maintain extra accounts for karma fiddling, but I think it's reasonable to assume that most people here do not. So in less words: the people you are replying to are (probably) not downvoting your replies.
- anonbanker 12y ago
  that's honestly what I would like to test for: sockpuppet accounts vs. hivemind. I'm okay if everyone universally agrees that I'm an idiot, but this feels like sockpuppetry to me. especially the -3 one. normally HN doesn't feel like reddit, but it's starting to.

krapp 12y ago

I've seen a number of interesting threads which inevitably end up with the first post blotted out to near-oblivion, and about half of it in various states of erasure. Hacker News seems designed to select for intellectual novelty rather than conversation. It's unfortunate that disagreement even for petty reasons acts as a global censor. Different groups of people downvoting whatever they personally think is uninteresting, irrelevant or wrong gets in the way of the site's utility for everyone else.

anonbanker 12y ago
and is completely against the HN guidelines. what are rules when everyone breaks them without caring?
- DanBC 12y ago
  Please can you link to which bit of the HN guideliens that you think are being broken by downvoters?
  - anonbanker 12y ago
    You have enlightened me: there are no guidelines on downvoting. at all. that's fairly terrible, IMO. I guess I should expect downvoting to be an ungregulated wild west, and accept the spiteful downvoting that comes with it. I understand this sounds sarcastic, but I'm being serious.
- krapp 12y ago
  The rules are not what people seem to think they are. I've seen enough threads where people claim the subject is not "HN material" in which it has to be pointed out to them (by dang usually) that, in fact, this is not just a forum for technology, startup culture or 'hacking' however you define it. The community has become large and diverse enough that there's a good chance quite a few people will find a subject of interest which you don't care for. This doesn't mean that Hacker News is necessarily declining in quality, but rather it means your particular biases are no longer as normative as you once thought. Hacker News material is defined entirely as whatever gets upvoted, that's the system, it's no more or less meritocratic than that. But people seem to find it an affront when some stories make it to the top of the heap, as if they got there by cheating.
  - anonbanker 12y ago
    You're right. the rules aren't what I thought they were either. I'm adjusting my views accordingly. I rarely care about "non-hn" stories making it to the front page; discussions on HN were more important than the links themselves. I wonder if I'm in the minority there.

DanBC 12y ago

I would guess that in [2] you were downvoted for incomprehensibility and then, in the reply posts in that sub-thread, for tone. It does seem a bit odd to say that you have been experimenting with bad postig style and to then complain that people have downvoted you because of it. > rather than the HN guidelines. Please could you link to the bit of guidelines that you're talking about?

anonbanker 12y ago
> you were downvoted for incomprehensibility see, that's the funny part. it was a thread about the right to remain silent, and I was explaining that Silence = consent/agreement. when I brought the other poster's silence up as agreement, I was buried to -3. Did you have a problem comprehending my post, with the point of the discussion in mind? do you believe the moderation was fair (main post was at 0)? I fully accept that I am attempting to be controversial. I usually don't state my actual opinions for fear of being downvoted. But now that I have sufficient karma to avoid hellbanning (for at least a while), I figured I could give experimenting with moderation habits a try by speaking thing I believe. > Please could you link to the bit of guidelines that you're talking about? see my other reply to you. You were absolutely correct about there being no regulation for when/when not to downvote. EDIT: tried to explain controversial opinions a little
- anonbanker 12y ago
  also, seeing as you're paying attention, here's[1] another one I'm watching get downvoted due to disagreement. Do you think the moderation is appropriate? 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8434094 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8434094
  - kevinskii 12y ago
    In this comment you offered the same theory about "pump and dump" that many others had over an hour earlier. It wasn't anything new. And the idea that Apple's demise would lead to the rise of Ubuntu is, well, let's just again say that I didn't (and won't) downvote you.

maxerickson 12y ago

I can't downvote replies to my posts. I guess most people can't. Of course you can't be sure if people maintain extra accounts for karma fiddling, but I think it's reasonable to assume that most people here do not. So in less words: the people you are replying to are (probably) not downvoting your replies.

anonbanker 12y ago
that's honestly what I would like to test for: sockpuppet accounts vs. hivemind. I'm okay if everyone universally agrees that I'm an idiot, but this feels like sockpuppetry to me. especially the -3 one. normally HN doesn't feel like reddit, but it's starting to.