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Getting Cancelled on HN a Thing?

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Re: Getting Cancelled on HN a Thing?

#41

Post by hiq »

ratsmack wrote: post #18
schoen wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard opposite complaints about what that slant is (I think entirely from people making their claims in good faith). And of course, both could be correct: there could be a particular mainstream and everyone whose views are outside of it in any direction might find a somewhat chilly reception. > far too many people would rather down vote than refute an argument Another challenge is that there's not always a conse…

I generally reserve down votes for personal attacks and comments that are excessively off topic.

I tend to downvote lazy arguments or loaded questions which can be easily answered in 10 seconds by looking them up and have regularly appeared on HN, devoid of new content.

It's fine not to know something, but the threshold to comment should be slightly higher than that; a quick Internet search shouldn't already answer your question / remark.

If I'm not careful I start writing an answer to these, only to realize that I've already done so for the same remark several times already. At that point I just dismiss my comment and downvote instead.

I think we're kind of missing a HN FAQ which we could assume is common knowledge. Obviously I'm talking about technical topic where there is a clear answer.

Re: Getting Cancelled on HN a Thing?

#42

Post by tinus_hn »

bigiain wrote: post #34
krapp wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems as if people are looking through your profile for your comments and go and downvote some more. It comes across a bit weird. People will do that. It's happened to me a couple of times. Nothing you can do about it, though, and you're not allowed to complain about it. Just take your lumps in silence.

I think the reasons for not being allowed to complain are pretty fair though, it’s not going to make any positive difference (and you’ll more likely end up Streisand Effecting yourself), and it’s uninteresting for everybody else. I see it as not so much “take your lumps”, but more like “Meh, haters gonna hate - just ignore them.” Not a perfect solution, sure, but if you wanna participate on a anonymous/pseudonymous f…

Reddit has a system where if people do that, for them it looks like downvotes but for the rest it doesn’t count.

Re: Getting Cancelled on HN a Thing?

#44

Post by dang »

hiq wrote: post #39
ratsmack wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing wrong with energetic conversation as long as it remains civil, but I have to guess that your experience is that the incivility comes quicker in these cases though.

It might not only be incivility but also lower SNR (people replying to each other with the same rehashed arguments) which makes the whole thread less interesting for everyone, including passive readers

That's also exactly right. Sometimes we call it the 'overheated discussion detector' for that reason—not every such low-SNR thread is a flamewar.

Re: Getting Cancelled on HN a Thing?

#45

Post by dang »

ratsmack wrote: post #24
dang wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it triggered the flamewar detector.

There's nothing wrong with energetic conversation as long as it remains civil, but I have to guess that your experience is that the incivility comes quicker in these cases though.

Yes, although the issue isn't only incivility, but also other forms of repetition. The intention is to avoid discussions that are predictable and otherwise low-information, to the extent possible.

You're quite right that energetic conversations can be really good, though, which means we have to review the list of threads that have gotten penalized by the flamewar detector and turn the penalty off for the ones that don't deserve it. We do that several times a day. It's not a perfect solution though, because sometimes a thread languishes for hours before we notice that that's happened.

Re: Getting Cancelled on HN a Thing?

#46

Post by sizt »

dang wrote: post #45
ratsmack wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing wrong with energetic conversation as long as it remains civil, but I have to guess that your experience is that the incivility comes quicker in these cases though.

Yes, although the issue isn't only incivility, but also other forms of repetition. The intention is to avoid discussions that are predictable and otherwise low-information, to the extent possible. You're quite right that energetic conversations can be really good, though, which means we have to review the list of threads that have gotten penalized by the flamewar detector and turn the penalty off for the ones that do…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic
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