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The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

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Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#261

Post by type0 »

robocat wrote: post #140
joering2 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would actually like to see a list of largest karma-wise HN members who left. By leaving I would say over 180 days inactive. Dang can you post the result please: SELECT hn_name, hn_karma, hn_last_active FROM comments WHERE TIMESTAMPDIFF(DAY, hn_last_active, NOW()) > 180 ORDER BY hn_karma DESC LIMIT 100

That would give no information about the reason someone left: there are a lot of reasons to stop interacting with hn that have nothing to do with the “best people leave in short order” theory.

I know some people just switched to a different account and you would think they left.

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#262

Post by BrandonM »

josephg wrote: post #156
jonnycomputer wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people just use it to signal disagreement. I just did so now.

Don’t use downvotes to signal disagreement. It goes against the implicit and explicit guidelines of HN. And it drags HN closer to reddit. Even if you see other people using downvotes for disagreement, that doesn’t make it ok for you to do the same. Downvotes are for when people violate the norms and values of our community without thoughtfulness or self awareness. The difference is subtle sometimes, but your comment…

I use downvotes to signal disagreement when, from my perspective, someone is giving bad advice, not accurately representing the truth, speculating in an unproductive way, distracting from the discussion with completely unfounded claims, etc.

I personally think of "disagreement" as a continuum, where one end is pretty close to my own view, and the other is absolutely abhorrent or incoherent. Certainly part of that continuum warrants downvotes. "Don't use downvotes to signal disagreement," is meaningless in that context.

More concretely, the HN guidelines say nothing about why to downvote. They only say, "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#263

Post by the_only_law »

ascar wrote: post #229
TheManInThePub wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, I couldn't agree with this more. I've seen intelligent and insightful HN posts down voted simply because they went against the status-quo. If this is allowed to go on, people will be afraid of making controversial (but intelligent) posts, and this place will become another reddit.

> I've seen intelligent and insightful HN posts down voted simply because they went against the status-quo The best thing to do here is for the community to step in and actively up-vote unfairly downvoted comments.

Isn’t there supposed to be a vouch system? I’ve seen comments that were flagged to death that shouldn’t have been (and a lot more vice versa) but I never seem to see the vouch link whether I have showdead on or not.

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#264

Post by disgrunt »

krapp wrote: post #236
disgrunt wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a ban designed to make it appear to the banned user that they aren't banned. The intent is to allow them to continue to post (so they don't make a new account and avoid the ban) unaware that their posts are unreadable by the rest of the community. How is that distinct from a shadowban? Or is it the same thing?

It's the same thing. Hellban is just a less polite term for it.

I've experienced a similar thing on HN. I'm calling it the "insta throttle". I've been met with a "You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks." message after posting just once.

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#265

Post by downandout »

DangitBobby wrote: post #245
downandout wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it's an honest assessment of the current state of HN.

It's a bit passive aggressive, don't you think, to do drive-by insults of random strangers?

When I first put that up, I actually ended it by saying "Be part of the solution" or something along those lines. Then, as the downvotes kept coming, I came to realize that most of the people checking my profile had just downvoted one of my comments, and were there looking for additional comments to downvote. I have watched the downvotes come in batches, across threads. That's why it has a pretty negative tone.

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#266

Post by pessimizer »

minimaxir wrote: post #57
dang wrote: post #23

Getting it wrong for 12 years now: The Value of Downvoting, Or, How Hacker News Gets It Wrong (2009) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25633668 - Jan 2021 (1 comment) 10 Years In, Was He Right? “Value of Downvoting; How HN Gets It Wrong” - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23409231 - June 2020 (1 comment) The Value of Downvoting, or, How Hacker News Gets It Wrong (2009) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=…

It's worth noting that 2009 was a eon ago in internet time. Almost nothing from that era is applicable to social media behavior in 2021. Especially Hacker News, which IMO was much more elitist/hostile at that time and fortunately has improved in that aspect over the years.

Seemed friendly enough in 2010. There was a lot less news cycle discussion and more tech (but less product) discussion, so that might have been alienating. Also a lot more YC specific stuff, so maybe that felt elitist.

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#267

Post by vcxy »

prichino wrote: post #239
cryptoz wrote: post #216

I used to read Coding Horror but stopped paying attention to Jeff Atwood after his anti-coding rant. He repeatedly insisted that "learning to code" is a really dumb thing to do unless you intend to make a career out of it. A really shocking opinion that I was surprised to hear from him, and made me lose all respect for his coding-related opinions.

At least he has opinions. The "everyoness must code" folk sometimes do sound like markov-generated text. Funny that you hold his coding opinions in less respect for what is most decidedly a not coding-related opinion. Substitute coding for "advanced mathematics", "investment banking", "nursing". Would you lose respect for a professional nurse's nursing opinions if he said learning to nurse is a really dumb thing to d…

Not the parent commenter, but kinda, yeah. Saying that it's stupid to learn x if you aren't going to monetize comes off poorly to me. So does saying that everyone should learn x. I don't understand either view.

Is it weird to have an interest in nursing and learn about it but not be interested in monetizing it? Sure, it could be. Is it dumb? No.

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#268

Post by a1369209993 »

the_only_law wrote: post #263
ascar wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've seen intelligent and insightful HN posts down voted simply because they went against the status-quo The best thing to do here is for the community to step in and actively up-vote unfairly downvoted comments.

Isn’t there supposed to be a vouch system? I’ve seen comments that were flagged to death that shouldn’t have been (and a lot more vice versa) but I never seem to see the vouch link whether I have showdead on or not.

Not sure if it matches your problem, but FWIW, vouch only seems to show up for comments that already dead (not just flagged and downvoted).

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#269

Post by bscphil »

the_only_law wrote: post #263
ascar wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've seen intelligent and insightful HN posts down voted simply because they went against the status-quo The best thing to do here is for the community to step in and actively up-vote unfairly downvoted comments.

Isn’t there supposed to be a vouch system? I’ve seen comments that were flagged to death that shouldn’t have been (and a lot more vice versa) but I never seem to see the vouch link whether I have showdead on or not.

I see the vouch link, but only when I click on the permalink to the comment.

Re: The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wrong (2009)

#270

Post by type0 »

downandout wrote: post #144
joering2 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would actually like to see a list of largest karma-wise HN members who left. By leaving I would say over 180 days inactive. Dang can you post the result please: SELECT hn_name, hn_karma, hn_last_active FROM comments WHERE TIMESTAMPDIFF(DAY, hn_last_active, NOW()) > 180 ORDER BY hn_karma DESC LIMIT 100

I used to be incredibly active on here, and then I started getting downvoted on virtually every comment, likely for political reasons. I have all but stopped commenting compared to my previous activity. It just stopped being fun. Even posts I make that have nothing to do with politics, that only point out provable, factual information, get downvoted. I have over 13K karma, even after losing a few thousand points over…

Have you considered changing your account from 'downandout' to 'downvoteme'? It probably would do the trick.
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