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Don't feel bad. I've begun taking a perverse pleasure in learning which of my posts/comments will get downvoted. (Generally, anything criticizing HN darlings,

Don't feel bad. I've begun taking a perverse pleasure in learning which of my posts/comments will get downvoted. (Generally, anything criticizing HN darlings, e.g., Uber, will get downvoted. The echo chamber is strong.) I suspect you got downvoted because of a petulant realization of the inherent contradiction that many of us realize: This article really does not fit the HN guidelines at all yet we find it so intriguing. I believe the reasons we find it so intriguing are pretty obvious: We all of us, we hackers, love the exceptional, the one-of-its-kind, the historically significant if sufficiently curious, etc. We hack because the status quo isn't good enough. Getting that into a guideline is a bit tougher. I suspect I'll get downvoted because I just labelled the echo chamber as petulant. But that's a comfortable shoe, so so be it.

detaro 12y ago
> This article really does not fit the HN guidelines at all yet we find it so intriguing. See the guidelines. Basically, if many find it intriguing it probably is on-topic. > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
DanBC 12y ago
> Uber, will get downvoted Do you have any examples of your posts that you think got downvoted because you criticised Uber? I've made plenty of posts criticising Uber and got upvoes for most of those posts so I'm interested to see the difference.
- mikeash 12y ago
  Seriously, Uber has to be the worst imaginable example. The general mood on Uber here is almost entirely critical at this point.
- PeterWhittaker 12y ago
  A recent article used "Uber" as a verb, and poorly at that, and my comment upon the linkbaitiness and poor organization of the article got several downvotes. It wasn't about Uber directly, to be fair. And, of course, my comment parent to yours is being downvoted as well. (Which leads roundly to the question of the purpose of the downvote: To flag? Perhaps. To disagree? Hmm, perhaps actually writing a contrary or critical comment is more constructive. Other? Not sure. As I've stated often enough herein, I never downvote, I don't believe in it, I believe it serves no useful purpose (flag abuse, end of story), and believe that upvoting the good is sufficient to bury the bad. But I digress.)
  - DanBC 12y ago
    You Uber comment got downvoted because you posted a rant about an article which you hadn't bothered to read. It was a long tedious post to say "I don't like it when people use brandnames as verbs" - a reasonable point but made unreasonably. (Condescension and patronising tone will attract downvotes) > (Which leads roundly to the question of the purpose of the downvote: It's there for whatever purpose the downvoter wants. There are plenty of people who like you think downvoting is evil and must be avoided at all cost unless a post really deserves it. Those people will supply corrective upvotes if they see a post that has been unfairly downvoted. Don't forget that everyone has upvote privs and not everyone has downvote privs so if your post gets a downvote it hasn't just had a single person downvoting it, but the rest of the readership declining to upvote it.

detaro 12y ago

> This article really does not fit the HN guidelines at all yet we find it so intriguing. See the guidelines. Basically, if many find it intriguing it probably is on-topic. > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

DanBC 12y ago

> Uber, will get downvoted Do you have any examples of your posts that you think got downvoted because you criticised Uber? I've made plenty of posts criticising Uber and got upvoes for most of those posts so I'm interested to see the difference.

mikeash 12y ago
Seriously, Uber has to be the worst imaginable example. The general mood on Uber here is almost entirely critical at this point.
PeterWhittaker 12y ago
A recent article used "Uber" as a verb, and poorly at that, and my comment upon the linkbaitiness and poor organization of the article got several downvotes. It wasn't about Uber directly, to be fair. And, of course, my comment parent to yours is being downvoted as well. (Which leads roundly to the question of the purpose of the downvote: To flag? Perhaps. To disagree? Hmm, perhaps actually writing a contrary or critical comment is more constructive. Other? Not sure. As I've stated often enough herein, I never downvote, I don't believe in it, I believe it serves no useful purpose (flag abuse, end of story), and believe that upvoting the good is sufficient to bury the bad. But I digress.)
- DanBC 12y ago
  You Uber comment got downvoted because you posted a rant about an article which you hadn't bothered to read. It was a long tedious post to say "I don't like it when people use brandnames as verbs" - a reasonable point but made unreasonably. (Condescension and patronising tone will attract downvotes) > (Which leads roundly to the question of the purpose of the downvote: It's there for whatever purpose the downvoter wants. There are plenty of people who like you think downvoting is evil and must be avoided at all cost unless a post really deserves it. Those people will supply corrective upvotes if they see a post that has been unfairly downvoted. Don't forget that everyone has upvote privs and not everyone has downvote privs so if your post gets a downvote it hasn't just had a single person downvoting it, but the rest of the readership declining to upvote it.