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PG on trolls

paulgraham.com

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Re: PG on trolls

#121

Post by aston »

Kolibri wrote: post #120

>One might worry this would prevent people from expressing controversial ideas, but empirically that doesn't seem to be what happens. When people say something substantial that gets modded down, they stubbornly leave it up. What people delete are wisecracks, because they have less invested in them. How would you know? How would you know it does not stiffle unpopular opinions? I think that I would personally practice…

On your final comment, it's a pretty universal truth that every community will eventually find a common enemy. It's part of feeling like you're part of something.

Re: PG on trolls

#122

Post by DarrenStuart »

curi wrote: post #62
DarrenStuart wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol the irony of being down modded for my last comment :p

it's not necessarily ironic. maybe they didn't like how you used "grown up" to imply that children have the various bad traits you listed. which isn't a very reasonable or informative description of children.

I am sorry but you are twisting what I said there. I was meaning immature behavior which to quote the dictionary can mean "Marked by or suggesting a lack of normal maturity: silly, immature behavior."

People often tell others acting like an ass to grow up.

This has nothing to do with being an informative description of children and more to do with PG's troll post, now that is somewhat ironic :p

Re: PG on trolls

#123

Post by anupamkapoor »

dfranke wrote: post #17
anewaccountname wrote: post #15

Who is this guy and what authority does he have to write about these topics? I haven't read the essay, but there's no way anything so short and written in such an informal style could have anything useful to say about such and such topic, when people with degrees in the subject have already written many thick books about it.

Where can I get a degree in trolling?

devry ?

Re: PG on trolls

#125

Post by marcus »

yters wrote: post #97
pchristensen wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I had more votes to downmod you into prominence! J/k, I upmodded (for agreement)

Heh, it'd be funny to have the most negative karma on YC. The only reason I care about karma is cuz I want to change my header's color. Only 15 more points to go! Once there, I'll stick a post on the front page and get downmodded into oblivion.

I'm sorry to inform you but you don't get to keep your color if your karma drops below 250... although it is saved and it pops back when your karma passes 250 again. (already did the experiment :) )

Re: PG on trolls

#127

Post by DanielBMarkham »

pg wrote: post #27
DarrenStuart wrote: post #11

I think news.yc has a 5th troll behavior and it's down modding a comment because they disagree with it. I have been down modded a number of times not for saying something rude or stupid just something that others don't agree with. I tend to down mod rude and aggressive people on here and I also up mod people who I think have been down modded unfairly. I am not sure if I am alone with my way of thinking.

I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness. It only becomes abuse when people resort to karma bombing: downvoting a lot of comments by one user without reading them in order to subtract maximum karma. Fortunately we now have several levels of software to pro…

Count me in the people that don't agree as well. I used one of my very few down-mods on you, pg! Seemed appropriate given your comment. I very rarely downmod.

The karma system should predict how good I am going to feel after consuming the media -- nothing more. The problem is that for a simple question, the solution ain't so simple. I believe there is one, and I believe we've danced around this subject long enough for those paying attention to have figured it out.

Also -- thanks for the term "karma bombing". I've been a victim in the past, now I have a cool geeky name to describe it.

Re: PG on trolls

#128

Post by DanielBMarkham »

immad wrote: post #18
DarrenStuart wrote: post #11

I think news.yc has a 5th troll behavior and it's down modding a comment because they disagree with it. I have been down modded a number of times not for saying something rude or stupid just something that others don't agree with. I tend to down mod rude and aggressive people on here and I also up mod people who I think have been down modded unfairly. I am not sure if I am alone with my way of thinking.

We shouldn't down mod things we disagree with?

Because nobody cares whether you agree or disagree with anything. I'm expecting the score to represent _my_ feelings about the article after I read it, not yours.

I could go down a longer list: because mob rules is a not-so-good policy for quality reading material, because if one group votes on agreement and another group votes on quality then the agreement group "drowns out" the quality group, because it takes about 2 seconds to determine whether you agree with something, whereas determining if something is worth reading takes a lot longer (and is more valuable information), etc.

Note that I upmodded you, even though I take issue with your position. That's because you asked a good question. In another world, I'd just downmod you because I thought you were mistaken and for most readers the question would never have been asked (or answered)

Re: PG on trolls

#129

Post by jazj »

I suspect that this article is a direct consequence of Arc's sceptical reception on Slashdot, Digg, and Reddit.

Re: PG on trolls

#130

Post by jazj »

rms wrote: post #65

The Reddit thread is kind of sad. http://reddit.com/info/68zz4/comments/

I hope I'm not the first person to notice that the parent comment is, in fact a troll; it's a broad-brush personal attack on everyone who posted in that thread with no actual reasoning behind it.
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