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Does everything have to be a conspiracy? So either Microsoft is building some good and interesting stuff, or there's some conspiracy to target HN that would get

Does everything have to be a conspiracy? So either Microsoft is building some good and interesting stuff, or there's some conspiracy to target HN that would get them...what, exactly? +Karma here?

engendered 12y ago
Does my statement somehow make everything a conspiracy? Boy, we on HN are supremely good at knocking down those strawmen. "or there's some conspiracy to target HN that would get them...what, exactly? +Karma here?" Is this supposed to be intentionally naive? Microsoft is a technology company that heavily relies upon buy in and advocacy. Is this really difficult to understand? Every single comment to my post has either been an absurd strawman, simply a lie (daeken's nonsense), or just someone thinking they earn peer points. Sad.
- remarkEon 12y ago
  No, not intentionally naive, but perhaps intentionally not cynical. I'd like to believe that a technology company, such as Microsoft, relies on a bit more than buy-in and advocacy. Perhaps the soundness of a product, for example.
- kbenson 12y ago
  Without discounting the possibility that there may be some astroturfing, I think it's far more likely that you've run afoul of community expectations. The HN guidelines specifically suggest you resist commenting on downvotes, and people take that seriously here. Editing your comment to add meta-commentary on votes will generally just get you more downvotes. Additionally, your comments are fairly polarizing. You make statements about how something is obvious, but then provide nothing besides anecdotal evidence. If it's that obvious, real evidence should be easy to show, otherwise it's possibly not as clear as you think. You could possibly have avoided this problem by framing it as a question and leaving an opening for someone to provide a better answer. This also invites people who disagree, or have a different interpretation to engage in a useful way, rather than starting off in an antagonistic way. For example, stating something "absolutely and unequivocally" without evidence won't generally be seen useful to the discussion here.
- dang 12y ago
  It's no secret that we've had problems with pro-Microsoft astroturfing on HN in the past. But the way to deal with this is not to make angry, substanceless accusations and then complain when the community responds poorly. Please stop. I'm going to detach this subthread as off-topic now.
9k548j219 12y ago
For nearly any reoccurring subject on HN, someone on HN likely believes any non-negative comments about it are the result of shills.
john-waterwood 12y ago
Not just karma, too many lazy engineers choose their stack almost solely on a quick scan on HN to see what's cool. You can date many startups by first looking at their stack, and then checking when that stack was cool here.
- romanovcode 12y ago
  Not only here but in general "coolness" is one of the main factors for choosing tech in startups. 2008 - So did you rewrite your PHP apps in Ruby? 2012 - So did you rewrite your Ruby apps in Node? 2015 - So did you rewrite your Node apps in Go?
  - tsax 12y ago
    I'd dispute the 2015 one. There have been lots of Go related articles on HN, but Go usually gets a mixed reception.
- remarkEon 12y ago
  I think it would actually be pretty interesting to do some kind of visualization over time with popularity of languages and mentions on forums like this.

Does everything have to be a conspiracy? So either Microsoft is building some good and interesting stuff, or there's some conspiracy to target HN that would get them...what, exactly? +Karma here?

engendered 12y ago

Does my statement somehow make everything a conspiracy? Boy, we on HN are supremely good at knocking down those strawmen. "or there's some conspiracy to target HN that would get them...what, exactly? +Karma here?" Is this supposed to be intentionally naive? Microsoft is a technology company that heavily relies upon buy in and advocacy. Is this really difficult to understand? Every single comment to my post has either been an absurd strawman, simply a lie (daeken's nonsense), or just someone thinking they earn peer points. Sad.

remarkEon 12y ago
No, not intentionally naive, but perhaps intentionally not cynical. I'd like to believe that a technology company, such as Microsoft, relies on a bit more than buy-in and advocacy. Perhaps the soundness of a product, for example.
kbenson 12y ago
Without discounting the possibility that there may be some astroturfing, I think it's far more likely that you've run afoul of community expectations. The HN guidelines specifically suggest you resist commenting on downvotes, and people take that seriously here. Editing your comment to add meta-commentary on votes will generally just get you more downvotes. Additionally, your comments are fairly polarizing. You make statements about how something is obvious, but then provide nothing besides anecdotal evidence. If it's that obvious, real evidence should be easy to show, otherwise it's possibly not as clear as you think. You could possibly have avoided this problem by framing it as a question and leaving an opening for someone to provide a better answer. This also invites people who disagree, or have a different interpretation to engage in a useful way, rather than starting off in an antagonistic way. For example, stating something "absolutely and unequivocally" without evidence won't generally be seen useful to the discussion here.
dang 12y ago
It's no secret that we've had problems with pro-Microsoft astroturfing on HN in the past. But the way to deal with this is not to make angry, substanceless accusations and then complain when the community responds poorly. Please stop. I'm going to detach this subthread as off-topic now.

9k548j219 12y ago

For nearly any reoccurring subject on HN, someone on HN likely believes any non-negative comments about it are the result of shills.

john-waterwood 12y ago

Not just karma, too many lazy engineers choose their stack almost solely on a quick scan on HN to see what's cool. You can date many startups by first looking at their stack, and then checking when that stack was cool here.

romanovcode 12y ago
Not only here but in general "coolness" is one of the main factors for choosing tech in startups. 2008 - So did you rewrite your PHP apps in Ruby? 2012 - So did you rewrite your Ruby apps in Node? 2015 - So did you rewrite your Node apps in Go?
- tsax 12y ago
  I'd dispute the 2015 one. There have been lots of Go related articles on HN, but Go usually gets a mixed reception.
remarkEon 12y ago
I think it would actually be pretty interesting to do some kind of visualization over time with popularity of languages and mentions on forums like this.