Yeah I like totally don't get it...
/me smears monitor with excrement
Are you sick of being downvoted for having a different opinion?
11–20 of 51 posts
Re: Are you sick of being downvoted for having a different opinion?
#12I've managed to keep from being incessantly downvoted in my unpopular opinions by providing well documented arguments (logos, with an occasional appeal to ethos of sources), tying to personal credibility or experience (ethos), or providing personal experience developing an empathic response, then tying into into the main argument. (pathos -> logos, or just pathos.)
The problem isn't disagreement - it's not developing ethos, pathos, or logos into the appropriate argument. The more controversial the opinion, the more that one must work to develop these three qualities, rather than depending on just one.
I also work to expose the weaknesses of my own argument, admit them, but explain why they are superior to the more conventional alternative.
I find that when this fails for myself, it's often because my perspective is lacking, and I need to rethink my argument.
On reddit, I'll still usually find an unpopular opinion at 3 or 4 points. There's likely some downmodding done, but most people will leave it alone if it's a proper argument.
(Some arguments, of course, are out of bounds. The emotional appeal is too strong. Abortion in a pro-life forum, for example. I haven't had that problem in most major forums.)
Re: Are you sick of being downvoted for having a different opinion?
#13I've managed to keep from being incessantly downvoted in my unpopular opinions by providing well documented arguments (logos, with an occasional appeal to ethos of sources), tying to personal credibility or experience (ethos), or providing personal experience developing an empathic response, then tying into into the main argument. (pathos -> logos, or just pathos.) The problem isn't disagreement - it's not developing…
This is a great strategy for comments.
How does it help when you want to post a story on reddit that you think is important but unfortunately is highly controversial? (Hacker News doesn't have downvote for stories for exactly this reason, thanks!)
How does it help when people are downvoting you not only for your opinion but for who you are?
Karma is a great tool to manage trolls and signal / noise. Unfortunately in real world it is also used to silence opponents. And it is pretty effective at that. I want to change that.
Re: Are you sick of being downvoted for having a different opinion?
#14Re: Are you sick of being downvoted for having a different opinion?
#15I really don't care about being down or up voted.
I make a comment every now and again - if people want to vote on it, fair enough. Go ahead, that's what the system is for.
But please don't try to pretend this is anything other than an Internet forum. Semi-anonymous people hang out here and some of them are bound to be obnoxious. Down-votes for different opinions are par for the course. Get over it.
Re: Are you sick of being downvoted for having a different opinion?
#16Re: Are you sick of being downvoted for having a different opinion?
#17I'm not sick of being downvoted (don't care), but I can't say the same about posts that are nothing more than advertisements for the poster's startup.
i'm sick of imprecise posts. the above post is not "nothing more" than an advertisement, even if you're right that that is the primary motivation.
Re: Are you sick of being downvoted for having a different opinion?
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great, there are no submissions about downvotes there, because unlike here it is not a problem. Edit: whoever is downvoting this comment should check the definition of "irony"
Maybe you were downvoted for being hard to understand? "there"?
English is not my first language.
I meant that on the social news site that I'm working on there are no posts about downvotes, because everybody is free to express their opinion with up and down votes as they wish and it doesn't hurt anybody.
Re: Are you sick of being downvoted for having a different opinion?
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe you were downvoted for being hard to understand? "there"?
English is not my first language. I meant that on the social news site that I'm working on there are no posts about downvotes, because everybody is free to express their opinion with up and down votes as they wish and it doesn't hurt anybody.
Oh. Maybe you are being downvoted for advertising your startup too much?
Re: Are you sick of being downvoted for having a different opinion?
#20I'm not sick of being downvoted (don't care), but I can't say the same about posts that are nothing more than advertisements for the poster's startup.
i'm sick of imprecise posts. the above post is not "nothing more" than an advertisement, even if you're right that that is the primary motivation.
Thank you. You are right, that is not the primary motivation for the post. I liked slashdot back in the day. Had to move on to digg, then reddit, then hacker news, because the quality of discussions was degrading. I think hacker news has a chance to be free from trolls and have high signal / noise because of narrow focus, but these personal anonymous attacks on people with downvoting them for who they are and what they think started to happen here more and more often. I think there's a general solution and would be only happy if sites like Hacker News adopt it as well.