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Trolls (2008)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Trolls (2008)

#281

Post by danssig »

pg wrote: post #241
zedshaw wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never said ranking algorithm. I said, there's a bunch of links (like job postings and YC company PR posts) that get privileged front page status with their own decay algorithms, yet they aren't flagged as "promoted". They're just mixed in as if it's actually relevant news a bunch of people upvoted to the front page. Or how about all that crap that was on scribd back when nobody knew what scribd was? If you think this…

I said, there's a bunch of links (like job postings and YC company PR posts) that get privileged front page status with their own decay algorithms You are mistaken. Only job postings have their own decay algorithm, and those are visually distinguished from stories by e.g. not having points or comments. All stories have the same decay rate.

Has this always been the case? He seems to have a point with scribd, but then it could also be that there were just a lot less people voting over all back then.

Re: Trolls (2008)

#282

Post by draegtun »

phzbOx wrote: post #111

There is a difference between trolling, making a funny statement and saying a contrived opinion. On HN, all of these get down-voted equally. Often time, I find something funny, say it as a comment, and get down-voted. It's not a stupid joke or something inappropriate, just a comment that'd make the reader smile. And I know it's hard to judge because I keep saying the score of these comments oscillating (I.e. people u…

> they'll say "Wtf, stop wasting your time with perl. It's a DEAD LANGUAGE, WAKE UP". This kind of posts should just get deleted and the user warned and then banned from HN imo.

It would be good if something could be done. Nearly every Perl post here that gets some traction will often have this problem [1]. And sadly in most cases this engulfs the topic being posted :(

[1] And often its the same few people causing the problem.

Re: Trolls (2008)

#284

Post by _yobq »

rjd wrote: post #69

There is a couple more cases which add to the mix. 1) Devils advocate. People that interject with an opposing view, even one they don't believe. I often do this one myself cause another poster to go into deeper description. Often just asking for an deeper response will be ignored, but opposing a view will always bring out an argument. 2) Denial and Righteousness. Essentially nasty fan boys. People who have brought in…

No post body was provided.

Re: Trolls (2008)

#285

Post by yvdriess »

jshen wrote: post #159
edw519 wrote: post #147

Discussions like this remind me of my favorite scene from "Roadhouse", the best bad movie ever. Discussion forums are kinda like bars and hackers are kinda like coolers... All you have to do is follow three simple rules. One: never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected. Two: take it outside. Never start anything inside the bar unless it's absolutely necessary. And three: be nice. Come on. If somebody get…

"Sometimes we hackers work too hard to make things more complicated than they need to be." tl;dr: maintaining an online community is anything but simple. I'm not sure exactly what you mean. One possibility is that you're referring to the hackers that build communities online who try to establish some sort of guidelines for behavior. If this is what you meant then I think I disagree. I've tried a very similar experime…

You might be interested in this presentation on running an internet community: http://vimeo.com/5623703

Re: Trolls (2008)

#286

Post by einhverfr »

gbog wrote: post #205
mithaler wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was one discussion that I participated where I predicted that Apple would see declining profit margins due to increased competition. Remarkably this completely benign, seemingly obvious observation saw me declared a troll, and shortly thereafter yet another account was hellbanned from HN. I'm curious--can you paste the text of that comment here if you still have it? It's possible that, for example, it was your…

There has been some threads where any comment that was not a praise of Steve Jobs and Apple was downvoted. Sometimes I feel fragmentation on HN, was is upvoted in a thread is downvoted in another.

I have watched posts of my own go upvoted then downvoted then up voted then down voted more or less randomly.

FWIW I do NOT think people should downvote based on disagreement. I think downvotes should be sparsely used and I personally upvote even people I disagree with.

Re: Trolls (2008)

#287

Post by einhverfr »

edw519 wrote: post #170
jshen wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Sometimes we hackers work too hard to make things more complicated than they need to be." tl;dr: maintaining an online community is anything but simple. I'm not sure exactly what you mean. One possibility is that you're referring to the hackers that build communities online who try to establish some sort of guidelines for behavior. If this is what you meant then I think I disagree. I've tried a very similar experime…

Sometimes we hackers work too hard to make things more complicated than they need to be. I was referring to the hackers who use the forum, not the ones who run it. Sorry for the confusion. It really is much easier and more beneficial for everyone to just be nice . Why work harder to achieve less? A few strategies that have made it easier for me to "be nice": 1. Avoid long back and forth threads. Say what you have to…

Try to plan your comment to not be misinterpreted. This avoids much unnecessary pain. It's also difficult.

I think you can reduce the chance of misinterpretation but never eliminate it. Language is not sufficiently precise to prevent all misinterpretations.

Re: Trolls (2008)

#288

Post by einhverfr »

billpatrianakos wrote: post #239
zobzu wrote: post #218

The issue with votes is that they don't fix all that much. People often downvote other people they simply disagree with. In fact, most often do that. So it does not just shut off the "trolls" as in the "assholes". It also shuts off any unpopular opinion. That is sad, because unpopular opinions are generally interesting by nature, and sometimes insightful. That is because popular ones are well-known, thus cannot be "i…

I was trying to say the same thing in my previous comment above. Thank you for being able to put it this way. I think the downvote button should be reserved for off topic/trolling posts. If you downvote out of disagreement or boredom you risk actually turning that person into a troll later on. The newbie who writes a sincere but boring comment and gets downvoted doesn't learn how to better contribute. He just gets al…

I agree with you. It's far better to upvote than downvote. I dunno about others but I am willing to upvote people I disagree with. those who just repeat stock they have been told by others I don't downvote. It's only those who entirely detract from conversation....

I find the downvoting due to disagreement to be amusing here. Sometimes I read downvoted comments just to get a different viewpoint.

What I do find disturbing in this discussion are people with substantially high karma who have been hellbanned. That strikes me as dangerous. I have seen at least 4 hellbanned people on this forum and I would have disagreed with the banning of two of them (the other two were clearly trolls by any definition).

Re: Trolls (2008)

#289

Post by einhverfr »

figgles wrote: post #94
127 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only difference between money and karma is that we can't easily trade karma. Modern money is not physical, it is just a figment of our imaginations. It has only the value we collectively give it.

So, in other words, it's really important? Like, pays our bills, heats our homes, puts food on the table? If you want to apply reductionist arguments, then ancient money is just piles of metal. Not like it had any "value" beyond what they collectively gave it, either. Do we have to revisit the barter system where value is traded for value to once again realize the reason money was invented? Fish for tools works, unti…

But money is just an abstract idea that we exchange for those other physical things. It isn't really a representation of anything physical anymore.

It's not like a bank keeps a physical amount of cash equal to all account holders' deposits (if they did, they'd have nothing to lend). Instead all you do with your money is transfer it, or get paper vouchers for it in forms like checks, money orders, or federal reserve notes......

That people accept those for things that are physical doesn't change the fact that the money is in fact not a representation of anything physical.

Re: Trolls (2008)

#290

Post by antirez »

There are much better trolls than the one described here, that are guys using trolling to show a point about a controversial subject. For instance the flying spaghetti monster thing is a form of trolling, and it is a good one.

I think that in programming forums the biggest source of trolling is due to clueless people that still want to say something... in the real world they would be put at the door, but you can't do this in a forum, and even after a ban it is too simple to re-enter.

The simplest form of protection about this is to associate a cost to username creation in a forum. Even 5$ is enough. This time the ban is a real cost for the troller that will likely stop after the first 5$ rounds.

Another widely used form of "cost" is badges, that is, you start with an account that can do very little and it takes time (and a good comportment) to grow in features. However there is the risk of trolls opening N accounts in parallel just to have reserves of usernames, so it is also very important to penalize non used accounts.

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