4 ms·

See blogpost by michaelochurch where he proves this. Examples of users currently on rankban include larrys, eli_gottlieb, thinkcomp, DanielBMarkham, etc. This

by pen2l 12y ago

See blogpost by michaelochurch where he proves this. Examples of users currently on rankban include larrys, eli_gottlieb, thinkcomp, DanielBMarkham, etc. This is verifiable quite easily if you go into the comment history of these users. Take eli_gottlieb, for example. Sure, he often voices quasi-Marxist views, but why do his posts on technical things fall down so rapidly? Even below heavily downvoted trolls? Why did his post in 'Who wants to be hired?' so heavily sink to the very bottom? Lastly, some users who have engaged with HN moderators via email were taken off of rankbans, so they have never denied that these rankban mechanisms exist, they generally remain silent when this is brought up, and try to force the conversation surrounding it to a private medium ("please email us at support@ycombinator.com", etc.)

deleted 12y ago
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- pen2l 12y ago
  Do you really want me to just start linking comments of the users I named? I thought I'd leave that rather simple exercise to you, so I wouldn't be accused of cherry-picking.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - pen2l 12y ago
    edit: DanBC asked for proof, but has deleted the comment in which he asked for proof. This was my reply to that. Okay. Let's agree on one assumption: largely, comments on HN will be voted upon fairly. That is to say, trollish comments will be downvoted (and I'm sure you know of the basics, that heavily downvoted comments will sink down). And going further in this continuum, HN voters are intelligent enough to distinguish between good-faith, substantive posts from content-free, low-substance posts -- and vote as such. By this logic, eli's more substantive posts in a certain comment thread should be higher than its sibling-level posts. But they're consistently not. They're either at the very absolute end, or one above the absolute end. Examples: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9430757 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9430757 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9421905 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9421905 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9402551 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9402551 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9370954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9370954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9371219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9371219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9358256 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9358256 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9346313 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9346313 Do you really want me to keep going? Because this is too easy. All I'm doing is going in his comment history page, picking out comments that are substantive, good-faith, clearly non-trollish, clearly non-partisan... and I assume they should be ranked above comments that are better than his by any reasonable criteria, and consistently you find they're either not or only barely above the negatively-scored comments. You can do this exercise for any other user on rankban.
    - nkurz 12y ago
      I feel I'm fairly impartial here, as I regularly vote up comments by members that you list as victims. I looked at all the posts you linked, and did not see any evidence for the pattern that you claim. This doesn't mean you are wrong, but I think it at least means it isn't as obvious as you feel it is. > Let's agree on one assumption: largely, comments > on HN will be voted upon fairly. I see no strong reason to make that assumption, and further doubt the existence of a universally agreed upon definition of "fairly". I think the simpler explanation is that some comments that you (and I) think are good are downvoted by others who think they are bad. Perhaps some of these are "vendetta" votes against the individual, but I think most downvotes are based on the content and tone of each individual comment. While there are sometimes extreme short-term swings to the negative, I think the process tends to balance out with extra upvotes for comments the majority considers (rightly or wrongly) unfairly grayed out. But in my opinion, the result is majority rule, rather than anything universal or conspiratorial.
      - pen2l 12y ago
        So, after I made that comment, something pretty fantastic happened: for the links I provided, the rankings changed pretty significantly. Eli's comments were mostly at the very bottom for the links, now they are at the top. I was going to make an edit note pointing out this change since having made my comment, but chose not to. Trust me, the rankban mechanisms exist, some really smart users did some tests to confirm it, and a lot of people are in the know by now. We had this dispute about hellbans, shadowbans, and slowbans, that was much easier to prove. Rankban has been studied pretty extensively at this point, and everyone has been convinced of it. The current effort is to study the downvoteban and policy changes.
        bjourne 12y ago
        Why do you assume that? It could just as easily be someone holding a grudge against the user whose comments to you link to and habitually downvotes him or her. That the comments got upvotes after you linked to them isn't strange either; you drawn attention to that they were unfairly downvoted so people want to correct that.
eli_gottlieb 12y ago
>Take eli_gottlieb, for example. Sure, he often voices quasi-Marxist views, but why do his posts on technical things fall down so rapidly? Even below heavily downvoted trolls? Why did his post in 'Who wants to be hired?' so heavily sink to the very bottom? That happened? Ok, look, I don't count it a good thing, but I'd been assuming it was an automatic mechanism that kicks in when you take too many downvotes to one post. And my views are outright Marxist, not quasi-Marxist, but on some level, figuring out how to speak clearly across the massive inferential gap of "everyone else thinks Elizabeth Warren is solidly leftist and hasn't read all the same background literature as me" is my problem. And besides which, I did get a number of emails based on that "Who wants to be hired?" post, and based on the "Who's hiring?" post for April I responded to an ad that ended up finding me a very nice new job. So, overall, thanks for being angry on my behalf, but HN is really here for the business and technical stuff, for which it works well for me, and it really is my job to make my own points clear in a discussion.
- pen2l 12y ago
  I appreciate your thoughts, however it's already been established beyond doubt that rankbanning mechanisms exist and have been in effect for quite some time. I apologize for having called you out, I only did because people usually insist on getting "proof".
  - waterlesscloud 12y ago
    There was a time when "average karma" on your recent posts influenced your ranking. This was explicitly mentioned by pg at one point. However, dang has recently stated that avg karma has been removed and wasn't used for much anyway. So who knows? That being said, downvoting due to disagreement is currently deeply harmful to this site, but the mods seem to be fine with it. Since that's their stance, I've taken to being quite liberal in my use of downvotes. If that's the way it is, it's dumb not to do the same.
  - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
    Hmm. Interestingly, both of us are being downvoted in this very thread. I spent a whole post saying, "I don't mind automatic moderation mechanisms", and am apparently being downvoted for that. Well, now I kinda do mind.

by pen2l 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

pen2l 12y ago
Do you really want me to just start linking comments of the users I named? I thought I'd leave that rather simple exercise to you, so I wouldn't be accused of cherry-picking.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- pen2l 12y ago
  edit: DanBC asked for proof, but has deleted the comment in which he asked for proof. This was my reply to that. Okay. Let's agree on one assumption: largely, comments on HN will be voted upon fairly. That is to say, trollish comments will be downvoted (and I'm sure you know of the basics, that heavily downvoted comments will sink down). And going further in this continuum, HN voters are intelligent enough to distinguish between good-faith, substantive posts from content-free, low-substance posts -- and vote as such. By this logic, eli's more substantive posts in a certain comment thread should be higher than its sibling-level posts. But they're consistently not. They're either at the very absolute end, or one above the absolute end. Examples: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9430757 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9430757 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9421905 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9421905 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9402551 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9402551 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9370954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9370954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9371219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9371219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9358256 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9358256 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9346313 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9346313 Do you really want me to keep going? Because this is too easy. All I'm doing is going in his comment history page, picking out comments that are substantive, good-faith, clearly non-trollish, clearly non-partisan... and I assume they should be ranked above comments that are better than his by any reasonable criteria, and consistently you find they're either not or only barely above the negatively-scored comments. You can do this exercise for any other user on rankban.
  - nkurz 12y ago
    I feel I'm fairly impartial here, as I regularly vote up comments by members that you list as victims. I looked at all the posts you linked, and did not see any evidence for the pattern that you claim. This doesn't mean you are wrong, but I think it at least means it isn't as obvious as you feel it is. > Let's agree on one assumption: largely, comments > on HN will be voted upon fairly. I see no strong reason to make that assumption, and further doubt the existence of a universally agreed upon definition of "fairly". I think the simpler explanation is that some comments that you (and I) think are good are downvoted by others who think they are bad. Perhaps some of these are "vendetta" votes against the individual, but I think most downvotes are based on the content and tone of each individual comment. While there are sometimes extreme short-term swings to the negative, I think the process tends to balance out with extra upvotes for comments the majority considers (rightly or wrongly) unfairly grayed out. But in my opinion, the result is majority rule, rather than anything universal or conspiratorial.
    - pen2l 12y ago
      So, after I made that comment, something pretty fantastic happened: for the links I provided, the rankings changed pretty significantly. Eli's comments were mostly at the very bottom for the links, now they are at the top. I was going to make an edit note pointing out this change since having made my comment, but chose not to. Trust me, the rankban mechanisms exist, some really smart users did some tests to confirm it, and a lot of people are in the know by now. We had this dispute about hellbans, shadowbans, and slowbans, that was much easier to prove. Rankban has been studied pretty extensively at this point, and everyone has been convinced of it. The current effort is to study the downvoteban and policy changes.
      - bjourne 12y ago
        Why do you assume that? It could just as easily be someone holding a grudge against the user whose comments to you link to and habitually downvotes him or her. That the comments got upvotes after you linked to them isn't strange either; you drawn attention to that they were unfairly downvoted so people want to correct that.

eli_gottlieb 12y ago

>Take eli_gottlieb, for example. Sure, he often voices quasi-Marxist views, but why do his posts on technical things fall down so rapidly? Even below heavily downvoted trolls? Why did his post in 'Who wants to be hired?' so heavily sink to the very bottom? That happened? Ok, look, I don't count it a good thing, but I'd been assuming it was an automatic mechanism that kicks in when you take too many downvotes to one post. And my views are outright Marxist, not quasi-Marxist, but on some level, figuring out how to speak clearly across the massive inferential gap of "everyone else thinks Elizabeth Warren is solidly leftist and hasn't read all the same background literature as me" is my problem. And besides which, I did get a number of emails based on that "Who wants to be hired?" post, and based on the "Who's hiring?" post for April I responded to an ad that ended up finding me a very nice new job. So, overall, thanks for being angry on my behalf, but HN is really here for the business and technical stuff, for which it works well for me, and it really is my job to make my own points clear in a discussion.

pen2l 12y ago
I appreciate your thoughts, however it's already been established beyond doubt that rankbanning mechanisms exist and have been in effect for quite some time. I apologize for having called you out, I only did because people usually insist on getting "proof".
- waterlesscloud 12y ago
  There was a time when "average karma" on your recent posts influenced your ranking. This was explicitly mentioned by pg at one point. However, dang has recently stated that avg karma has been removed and wasn't used for much anyway. So who knows? That being said, downvoting due to disagreement is currently deeply harmful to this site, but the mods seem to be fine with it. Since that's their stance, I've taken to being quite liberal in my use of downvotes. If that's the way it is, it's dumb not to do the same.
- eli_gottlieb 12y ago
  Hmm. Interestingly, both of us are being downvoted in this very thread. I spent a whole post saying, "I don't mind automatic moderation mechanisms", and am apparently being downvoted for that. Well, now I kinda do mind.