Let's say someone here posts "fuck off" or "you're an idiot". Please explain how that can be interpreted as constructive to a discussion here.
Edit: Wow, people who childishly downvote certainly don't like to be called out about their childish downvoting. :)
People will even get the moderator to remove your comments and the moderator may make claims that your comments are "off-topic" if too many downmodders attach to your comment.
The moderator will even alter text you post without notice. HN is not a serious discussion forum, but a marketing exercise for a VC fund.
What? Absolutely not.
I confess to having edited a typo once or twice but that's it.
I believe I have seen comments edited (but I don't keep records).
The bottom line is that HN claims I said something I did not and there is no way for anyone to know which text I said and which text you (or another user with editing abilities) said.
(I've seen threads where some of the wackiest, most inexplicable downvoting is going on, I almost wonder if it's the site deliberately trying to stir up activity/controversy.)
In this thread it's becoming quite pathetic and ridiculous that people are unable to explain or back up the point they have made when I ask, and yet I get downvoted. On every post. This one will be no exception. (Edit: and it wasn't.)
I assumed this was a serious place, and liked the idea of rules to keep a civil and theoretically high quality discussion, but the abuse of downvoting by infantile people just destroys it.
Two are downvoted for asking someone to clarify their argument and for rebutting someone else's incorrect point. Or they're downvoted because some people simply downvoted every post I made, because I made it.
I'm mostly being downvoted by people who downvote opinions they don't agree with, or people they don't like, just as other people are in this thread, and which happens in other threads all the time.
> https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> Avoid gratuitous negativity.
> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument
> it makes boring reading.
If HN is against negativity, then maybe it should not have a button that expresses pure negativity.
And if something is being complained about so often there have to be two rules against it, maybe it's time to get rid of the (non-constructive) thing so many people are complaining about.
If people want to reward discussions or comments, or have them rise to the top, they can achieve such by pressing the up button (which AFAIK is how it works on the submissions - no downvote).
The only reason a downvote is necessary is to provide childish, fragile people a way to 'hide' or 'punish' opinions or people they don't like but are too incapable/lazy to refute.
Since I doubt I'm the first person to make these points, and suspect nothing will change after this post, I guess it's deliberate HN policy to pander to such people.
It should be fucking obvious that insults are a quick way to attract many downvotes.
And downvoting someone because they call specific downvoting childish? That seems like the epitome of childishness to me, and simply validates my point.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11644954
> Downvoting (ie, trying to bury or hide a post) because someone says sumfing u don't wike is pathetic and childish; if you disagree either argue against it or move on.
The rest of your comments increase the attack.
You are getting downvotes because your posts go on a meta tangent, and use insults. Stuff like this...
> umfing u don't wike is pathetic and childish
... is obviously going to get downvoted.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11645104
Or this one (also with a lower score):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11645505
> is obviously going to get downvoted.
For the baby language, maybe, but downvoting something you don't personally like is pathetic and childish.
That's not an "attack" or an "insult", it's a fact.
And it's, if anything, even more pathetic and childish to petulantly downvote a poster (perhaps across different posts) because they point out that fact.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11645505
> I honestly can't tell if this is meant to be serious or not.
Comments like that will usually get you downvotes.
> For the baby language, maybe, but downvoting something you don't personally like is pathetic and childish.
"People will downvote for disagreement" is a long established convention on HN. You might disagree with (I do too), but pointing it out by calling people childish is going to get downvoted. Your choice is to keep complaining using the same language (but stop complaining about being downvoted if you do so), or to use different language to complain about downvoting.
Here's PG suggesting that downvote to disagree is a problem https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1057347
Here' PG suggesting that downvote to disagree isn't a problem: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658683
See also this thread where most people are talking about a misuse of upvoting (to upvote mean or dumb comments). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2403696
> And it's, if anything, even more pathetic and childish to petulantly downvote a poster (perhaps across different posts) because they point out that fact.
It's also childish to keep whining^W complaining about downvotes using the same language that got you downvotes.
So people downvoted because you personally can't understand the following two laughably easy to understand sentences?
Let's say someone here posts "fuck off"
or "you're an idiot". Please explain how
that can be interpreted as constructive
to a discussion here.
> Comments like that will usually get you downvotes.
Why? Her post made no sense to me. If I can't tell if someone is being serious how am I supposed to find out?
If only I had 500+ karma, I guess I could have just mindlessly downvoted her instead, since according to you if someone can't understand a post, the poster should suffer for it.
> You might disagree with (I do too), but pointing it out by calling people childish is going to get downvoted.
> It's also childish to keep whining^W complaining about downvotes using the same language that got you downvotes.
Yet somehow okay for you to use the same language?
>Users should live or die by their votes on that comment. If you vote up the blub comment, you should personally get the downvotes for it too. Upvotes should expose you to the karmic downside of superficial comments.
dang, I assume you meant stop bickering, but if you absolutely mean no more posts, sorry for this. It will probably be the last anyway.
I'm just curious, since you (ferrari) and anyone else still reading this have more knowledge or experience about this, has any site, or even HN, ever tried making the usernames people who upvote and downvote publicly visible?
I think people would put more thought into what they up or (especially) downvote if they could not 'hide', and their usernames were attached to it. Likewise, if voting had a 'cost', say, 1 karma to upvote and 1 or 2 karma to downvote.
A top poster with privilege, tptacek, claimed on a detached (by dang) thread that seeing who downmods me is "really none of [my] business"[0]. I would guess the same applies to you.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10955220
[Still don't get how that comment was "off-topic"]