I don't check every dead comment I find, but the couple I've looked at this past week seemed OK. Dissenting opinion and not really out there.
I probably agree that it's better than other popular forums, but I disagree that the majority (I come across) should have been downvoted at all.
Most downmods (that I get) are most likely just due to posting something dumb though.
My experience has been that HN has the fewest of both problems out of anywhere on the internet. But I've been here for less than five years. If it was even better before that, I am surprised, and sad that it has somewhat fallen. It would however mirror the similar falloff I've seen on the rest of the internet.
Note that this is compounded by the HN audience using the downvote button in a somewhat unique way: As far as I can tell, if they don't think something contributes, they will downvote even if there is nothing inflammatory or shitty in the post. E.g. if somebody replies with something like, "I agree" or even just a joke, they are frequently downvoted. This looks harsh, but I actually have found relief in the relative scarcity of these kinds of nice-but-low-content posts that pepper the rest of the internet.
I appreciate the "you're demonstrably wrong" commentary, which downvoting doesn't provide.
Speculative opinions are sometimes downvoted for being repetitive or easily Googleable for veracity first. There have been plenty of comments I started, googled in the middle, learned something, and didn't bother finishing.
Is this about covid? Politics? AI/LLMs/transformers? Religion? Vi/Emacs? Those are where I see downvotes. The first one needs pretty nuanced discussion because despite the focus of the world's science the virus is still evolving new variants and there hasn't been enough time for really great peer review and consensus-building on all aspects, and there's a huge political element. I think the political divide between parties in the U.S. is the worst it's been in a couple hundred years, so that will draw out the downvoters for anything controversial. We are going to have to literally vote to further the political discussion/landscape. AI is moving so fast right now that no one is quite sure what is happening and there is a philosophical divide or two over what it means with respect to consciousness, sentience, intelligence, etc.; a mix of covid-level uncertainty with a bit more existential implications and a big helping of YMMV on impact. Religion is mixed both with politics and existential beliefs and so also requires more nuance than provocation or speculation.
Emacs. (This is an example of a downvotable comment; sharing only an affiliation or preference without some contributory nuance or furthering of a conversation)
It means they're almost certainly beliefs drawn from a convenient collection of wedge issues used to fight for votes in difficult voting districts (e.g. Battleground States but can be more localized or Federal) in the U.S.
Otherwise you'd expect people to complain that their pet theory of gravity is getting downvotes, or that their pet theory of which editor is better was downvoted. But no, it's collectively the ideas propagated as the major planks of party politics and used to shoehorn voters by district into the cohorts needed to maximize the chances for winning seats for particular party candidates. Individually truth-seeking people don't naturally gravitate towards whole sets of beliefs that just end up mutually incompatible with the set of beliefs of the other half of the country; it requires nudges in specific directions to achieve that. Large groups of people also don't collectively go off into falsehood-seeking together; again it takes specific nudges to achieve the perception that literally the other half of the country is intentionally deluding themselves.
This is a generic argument: imagine if your preferred political party was firmly established at your county, state, and federal level. How much would you really care or feel the need to argue for these most-downvoted dissenting views? Would they take lower precedence to practical things like, say, infrastructure and healthcare and small businesses (both parties love those) and R&D? Would the news cycle fixate on them to the point that they kept coming up for discussion on HN?
The parties don't even care which issues they own so long as they can wield them. Witness the flip-flop of territory (plank and physical land) between Democrats and Republicans beginning in the 1950s with civil rights. They will individually tend toward roughly compatible planks but it's by no means guaranteed. Also, unfortunately, it means that one party is almost guaranteed to drift out of the facts zone and into some weird twilight ideology zone over time; they have to keep the planks in place for utilitarian means (winning elections) so long as they are still effective even if it means actively reinforcing beliefs that are pretty obviously and objectively wrong, while the opposing party can double down on science where needed (but, still, certainly not required or even desired; better to have the flexibility to move back toward ideology if necessary).
HN doesn't claim to be an unfettered open forum of free discussion. In fact it's heavily moderated (not just for wild opinions) and you could argue that's what makes it so good.
When enough people are conditioned to believe X is a dangerous misinfo about Y topic, we are in a bubble and cannot discuss Y anymore openly because of "safety of the readers".
And people are easily conditioned to believe anything, if all media sources, including tech sites are "following the science" by silencing opposing views. This, we've seen A LOT in the last 2-3 years.
The "probably an unintentional lab break initially unnoticed then covered up" got lumped with the "aaaaah! China virus! Bill gates bad!".
Not by one person, in one comment, it's like a chain. Someone make a reasonable, skeptic comment, someone agree but goes further, the third one goes even further, and by the fourth we have a dumb idea that doesn't have any basis, and it's easier to reject the thread entirely.
But i made several comments highly suspicious of the real efficacy of mRNA comapred to usual deactivated virus (i do have a friend working at Valneva, so i might have been partisan), and had pleasants conversations about it, and learned a lot. But several time some big "vaccine = autism" guy showed up on the thread. It's just tiring.
You care about votes that much ?
Freedom isn’t free bud - you pay for it with Karma
Well said, though for HN, I think this is more like "you're in someone's backyard attending a BBQ with their friends. There are things you can say and be invited next time, and some things you shouldn't."
There was an HN comment yesterday calling a company name almost-racist, because with the right intonation, there could be parallels to a word that can be interpreted in a racist way. I didn't even dare commenting that "those who seek to be offended, will find a way to be offended." I think the downvotes given to the comment said the same thing, but of course kills the topic. And we'll see the same thing repeated again, thought perhaps not by the same author.
To me those downvotes are a nudge to stay on topic, but sometimes the conversation or learning get cutoff
Hackernews had it's eternal september. Dissenting views absolutely aren't allowed and you'll end up punished by the site because you will get brigaded: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=brigading
It's absolutely not inevitable. This is a decision by hackernews they made. They are doing this to 'slow the decline of the website'
There's no real reason for self-censoring, if you think something may be reasonable, you can throw it at the community and then you'll know whether it's something we're willing to discuss; and if it gets "censored" and thrown out, well, it's no big deal.
What non-engagement looks like is not voting.
The opposite is also a problem. Some of things that get upvoted are annoying to me.
These examples are all from reddit but apply in a general sense as well.
Answer: D Maybe a little of all of the above.
I find it best to just ignore the votes. I know sometimes people will downvote or flag things I say or submit but I can say or submit those things anywhere else too. Some things will be seen here and some things will be seen elsewhere. I am not going to change the minds of the masses either way. I just share what I think others may find interesting and let them sort it out. If something is too taboo for one audience I share with a different audience. The more provocative topics may be better shared on 4chan assuming one has thick enough skin for the responses. Consequences will never be the same.
This won't help the comments that get flagged but you can ignore the votes on things somewhat with uBlock Origin and adding a custom filter. Addons -> uBlock Origin Preferences -> My Filters, then add something like:
## HN Block Karma View
news.ycombinator.com##.comhead .score:style(overflow: hidden; display: inline-block; line-height: 0.1em; width: 0; margin-left: -1.9em;)
news.ycombinator.com##.comhead:not(.sitebit):style(overflow:hidden; display: inline-block);
news.ycombinator.com###hnmain > tbody > tr:first-of-type table td:last-of-type .pagetop:style(font-size: 0!important; color: transparent!important;)
news.ycombinator.com###hnmain > tbody > tr:first-of-type table td:last-of-type .pagetop > *:style(font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.45em;)
news.ycombinator.com###logout::before:style(content: "|"; padding: 0.25em;)
news.ycombinator.com##form.profileform tbody tr:nth-child(3)
#
My advice is to "post and ghost". HN doesn't show you when someone else commented, so just move on. I personally don't care what non-nuanced thinkers think about me, and I know people who are willing to engage honestly with me will either prove me wrong or disagree without feeling the need to rip me apart. I think the consequences of dissenting are overblown.
with an example it's hard to tell.
I try to go to new and offer advice to people early on which usually get upvoted. Then I don't really care about the down votes.
As a rule, I immediately downvote these, because there's already a place for this kind of mad magazine garbage, it's called reddit.
Now anyone can weigh in on anything that is presented online. You are no longer debating amongst your "clan" but amongst all clans, many of which won't really understand where you're coming from and will invariably disagree.
Say what you think you can’t, and be prepared for others to also say what they think of what you say. Your speech doesn’t get special treatment just because you went first.
I don’t know the cause, but I would surely like a more open discussion where most viewpoints can be openly discussed.
But yeah some things you just can't say on HN without being downvoted: subcriptions are not evil, opt-out telemetry is fine, not everything needs to be open source, etc.
Perhaps it's just an unpopular opinion. And yes, perhaps that's because the world has shifted on you. But perhaps your opinions have hardened too.
I think HN does a fair job at pushing focus to the good, and not piling on the bad.
Very bad overview that is a poor substitute for reading the book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coddling_of_the_American_M...
> The book goes on to discuss microaggressions, identity politics, "safetyism", call-out culture, and intersectionality.[1] The authors define safetyism as a culture or belief system in which safety (which includes "emotional safety") has become a sacred value, which means that people become unwilling to make trade-offs demanded by other practical and moral concerns. They argue that embracing the culture of safetyism has interfered with young people’s social, emotional, and intellectual development.[2] Continuing on to discuss contemporary partisanship or the "rising political polarization and cross party animosity", they state that the left and right are "locked into a game of mutual provocation and reciprocal outrage".[2]
> The authors call on university and college administrators to identify with freedom of inquiry by endorsing the Chicago principles on free speech,[2]: 255–257 through which university and colleges notify students in advance that they do not support the use of trigger warnings or safe spaces.[3] They suggest specific programs, such as LetGrow, Lenore Skenazy's Free Range Kids, teaching children mindfulness, and the basics of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).[2]: 241 They encourage a charitable approach to the interpretations of other peoples' statements instead of assuming they meant offense.
Sometimes it feels like the only reason people are “going to bat”/rationalizing/etc. (glorified simping) for corporations/people of wealth or power/etc. is because they have a financial incentive to maintain good publicity else the stock they hold would be in jeopardy.
I know there’s been sock-puppetry on smaller scales; but for things like FAANG/MAANGA/Elon/$latest_bigco_doing_layoffs you have people coming out of the woodwork to sing praises and “ackschtully”s, perhaps because they work there/know people that work there/or have stock in the parties involved.
But other times it might just be a rationalization to preserve ego. F.e. on Blind, outright saying that FAANG et al. Might be overrated is a quick way to get a bunch of Googles and Microsofts to tell you off.
HN is fairly tolerant on some axes, and fairly conservative on other axes.
But one thing you should learn is how to have a thick-skin. Who cares about downvotes? I certainly don't. Why do you?
Two off the top of my head, he wants to say things perceived as hurtful on hot topics (trans rights for example)
Or he's bringing up controversial opinions at times where it seemed forced. I know personally this happened with a gun comment here
Edit for a third, he could be a "hard truth" guy and just saying things that come off insulting
People need to find ways to express themselves productively, and when they don’t, other people must have the freedom to express their displeasure, or we won’t reap the benefits of free speech.
Brigading is another matter and limit my comment to 'normal' up/down vote patterns.
You really think there are no views that should be self-censored? There exist many views that I believe are not worthy of being aired in public
Calling that a "cultural of suppression" instead of "the intended outcome of a feature" seems weird.
The way this site works, the intended semantics of upvotes and downvotes are roughly "promote" and "suppress". Or at least that's the way I see it. But it's obvious that many people see it otherwise and use them as "agree" and "disagree".
Ignore the initial downvotes. They are sometimes canceled out later, you just have to wait for it.
Then there's no concern about maintaining an ongoing reputation, or being downvoted or flagged, or having your comment deaded, or people being rude to you, or being doxxed - because you've already discarded the persona you used to engage. A temporary carapace within which to roam this virtual world, never to be inhabited again.
There's no self-censorship with this approach, because there's no self.
"Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but please don't create accounts routinely. HN is a community—users should have an identity that others can relate to."
There's always places you can discuss your opinions, but not all opinions are welcome in all places. If the people you _want_ to discussion your opinions with aren't in the places where you _can_ discuss your opinions, you should think about why that is.
Like all online communities, HN suffers from the "most active people online do nothing IRL" factor, and the downvotes show.
As far as forums go, people here often try to keep things civil, serious, and in good faith (shoutout to dang), but IMO there is still that stain of “academic” bullying where the words stay polite, but their coded meaning is nasty and dehumanizing.
There is an information war going on. Many headlines and things that you might try to call “news” I see as malicious and violent. How can a news organization write that hurricane damage is more expensive than ever, allow many readers to believe that it is all because hurricanes are worse, and refuse to mention how coastal areas have developed in the same time?
This is war. Clutch your pearls all you like, but we are done pretending that your intents towards us are anything but malicious. This is us trying to intimidate you into backing down, because it is the right thing to do, and better than the alternative.
We see you for who you are. We don’t care if you agree or not. Stop this madness before more people get hurt. Stop the lies, stop the fighting words - coded or not. Just stop it.