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Downvotes coz I call out patio11? explanation please?

by kang 12y ago

vinceguidry 12y ago
Not so much the calling out as the tone, which is unwarranted for pretty much any discussion on HN.
- kang 12y ago
  Please care to explain the tone. Is the word fuck banned on here? I wrote 'fuck bitcoin, blockchain is the thing' where I got just a little passionate and really meant 'forget bitcoin and see blockchain'. Even then, my comment wasn't rude in anyway.
  - vinceguidry 12y ago
    Well, your comment starts off by calling him 'wrong'. That immediately sets a combative tone for the rest of the comment, which would have been perfectly reasonable otherwise. A lot of times if your tone is unintentionally off you'll get a few initial downvotes but other people will see your intentions and bring you up out of the grey, which is what happened here. You're continuing to get downvoted on other comments because they're contributing to a discussion nobody wants to see, the discussion about the discussion. It's best to just stick to the topic, and treat downvotes and the score in general as the ultimately meaningless internet points that they are. HN prizes the generally high signal-to-noise ratio of the comments. Also Bitcoin is a political topic, one that will draw lots of people who will downvote you just because they don't agree with you.
    - vinceguidry 12y ago
      This post seems to be getting more than usual upvotes for a comment deep in thread, and I can't edit it anymore, so let me add that I typically will consider deleting the first sentence of every email and comment I unleash on the world. It is often detritus that just doesn't belong there.
    - anonbanker 12y ago
      Remember, kids: you will be downvoted for saying someone is wrong on HN.
waterlesscloud 12y ago
Bitcoin is a topic that brings out a lot of irrational arguments and pejorative name calling ("boiler rooms", for example) in the HN community. There's some truly transformative tech at the core of Bitcoin, which is why it's been as successful as it has been (and will be) as a technology. On the other hand, there really is a contingent of supporters that primarily has a profit motive. I've come to see it like politics. People pick a side and then become extreme about it, to no one's real benefit. People are weird about money, in several directions at once. Bitcoin is money. Therefore people are weird about Bitcoin. That's my theory, anyway.
- moe 12y ago
  That's my theory, anyway. Which the HN community helpfully confirms by downvoting your perfectly reasonable comment. I think Bitcoin tickles a rather deep-rooted fear in many people. Money is fundamental to everyone's existence and has always been exclusively issued and controlled by "the authority". Seeing a completely different system appear out of nowhere, and seeing it actually work (on a small scale), triggers a strong enough anxiety-reflex in enough people for every debate about Bitcoin to immediately derail into discussing BTC as if its definite purpose was to replace "real money", starting tomorrow, completely and entirely, and to devalue my pension fund in the process.
  - vectorpush 12y ago
    Ugh. This kind of arrogance is a significant contributing factor to the contentiousness of bitcoin discussion. Nobody is fearful of bitcoin, especially not with regard to the idea that bitcoin will somehow replace fiat money and "devalue my pension fund". It's intellectually insulting and it goads skeptics into sarcastic and unproductive debate. When enthusiastic bitcoin supporters parade around this kind of nonsense while simultaneously heaping on volumes of nebulous praise like "transformative", "revolutionary", "world-changing", likening bitcoin to the early internet, claiming it will stop wars, stop corruption, free the people and all the rest, it really puts up red flags for a lot of people.
    - moe 12y ago
geofft 12y ago
HN pro tips: 1. Resist complaining about downvotes. It makes boring reading (and hence gets downvoted). This is literally one of the guidelines. 2. If you find yourself saying "Downvoted because I <position in an argument>, really?", the answer is always, no, downvoted because you expressed <position in an argument> in a non-constructive manner that nobody wanted to read. If you had expressed <opposite position> in the same way, you'd have been downvoted too. This might be that you were overly aggressive, this might be that you were insufficiently clear in making your point, this might be because both <position> and <opposite position> are dead horses, etc. But the answer is always no.

Downvotes coz I call out patio11? explanation please?

by kang 12y ago

Downvotes coz I call out patio11? explanation please?

vinceguidry 12y ago

Not so much the calling out as the tone, which is unwarranted for pretty much any discussion on HN.

kang 12y ago
Please care to explain the tone. Is the word fuck banned on here? I wrote 'fuck bitcoin, blockchain is the thing' where I got just a little passionate and really meant 'forget bitcoin and see blockchain'. Even then, my comment wasn't rude in anyway.
- vinceguidry 12y ago
  Well, your comment starts off by calling him 'wrong'. That immediately sets a combative tone for the rest of the comment, which would have been perfectly reasonable otherwise. A lot of times if your tone is unintentionally off you'll get a few initial downvotes but other people will see your intentions and bring you up out of the grey, which is what happened here. You're continuing to get downvoted on other comments because they're contributing to a discussion nobody wants to see, the discussion about the discussion. It's best to just stick to the topic, and treat downvotes and the score in general as the ultimately meaningless internet points that they are. HN prizes the generally high signal-to-noise ratio of the comments. Also Bitcoin is a political topic, one that will draw lots of people who will downvote you just because they don't agree with you.
  - vinceguidry 12y ago
    This post seems to be getting more than usual upvotes for a comment deep in thread, and I can't edit it anymore, so let me add that I typically will consider deleting the first sentence of every email and comment I unleash on the world. It is often detritus that just doesn't belong there.
  - anonbanker 12y ago
    Remember, kids: you will be downvoted for saying someone is wrong on HN.

waterlesscloud 12y ago

Bitcoin is a topic that brings out a lot of irrational arguments and pejorative name calling ("boiler rooms", for example) in the HN community. There's some truly transformative tech at the core of Bitcoin, which is why it's been as successful as it has been (and will be) as a technology. On the other hand, there really is a contingent of supporters that primarily has a profit motive. I've come to see it like politics. People pick a side and then become extreme about it, to no one's real benefit. People are weird about money, in several directions at once. Bitcoin is money. Therefore people are weird about Bitcoin. That's my theory, anyway.

moe 12y ago
That's my theory, anyway. Which the HN community helpfully confirms by downvoting your perfectly reasonable comment. I think Bitcoin tickles a rather deep-rooted fear in many people. Money is fundamental to everyone's existence and has always been exclusively issued and controlled by "the authority". Seeing a completely different system appear out of nowhere, and seeing it actually work (on a small scale), triggers a strong enough anxiety-reflex in enough people for every debate about Bitcoin to immediately derail into discussing BTC as if its definite purpose was to replace "real money", starting tomorrow, completely and entirely, and to devalue my pension fund in the process.
- vectorpush 12y ago
  Ugh. This kind of arrogance is a significant contributing factor to the contentiousness of bitcoin discussion. Nobody is fearful of bitcoin, especially not with regard to the idea that bitcoin will somehow replace fiat money and "devalue my pension fund". It's intellectually insulting and it goads skeptics into sarcastic and unproductive debate. When enthusiastic bitcoin supporters parade around this kind of nonsense while simultaneously heaping on volumes of nebulous praise like "transformative", "revolutionary", "world-changing", likening bitcoin to the early internet, claiming it will stop wars, stop corruption, free the people and all the rest, it really puts up red flags for a lot of people.
  - moe 12y ago

geofft 12y ago

HN pro tips: 1. Resist complaining about downvotes. It makes boring reading (and hence gets downvoted). This is literally one of the guidelines. 2. If you find yourself saying "Downvoted because I <position in an argument>, really?", the answer is always, no, downvoted because you expressed <position in an argument> in a non-constructive manner that nobody wanted to read. If you had expressed <opposite position> in the same way, you'd have been downvoted too. This might be that you were overly aggressive, this might be that you were insufficiently clear in making your point, this might be because both <position> and <opposite position> are dead horses, etc. But the answer is always no.