:(
So, how does the little triangle work? It's not really explained totally in the help. I've never really clicked on it as I wasn't sure whether we had to.
Does clicking on links have any effect, too?
1) Funny one liners have to be fucking hilarious to be voted up. Best to avoid attempts at humor altogether when it comes to HN.
2) If you're going to post something, remember to make it concise. Just like in the real world, tight and digestible comments get better play than huge walls of text.
3) Ignore karma in general. People will often vote you up or down for stupid reasons so if you're going against the prevailing opinion you'll get a much lower score than anything people agree with [1]. Also time spent worrying about karma is time you could spend worrying about things that actually matter in your life.
[1] This isn't unique to HN, people naturally think more favorably about people who agree with them.
Don't post in agreement with someone, click the up arrow to vote the comment you agree with up.
Don't try to be funny/witty in your comments unless you're REALLY good at at and/or can make a particularly insightful joke. If your comment even remotely looks like a rehashed Internet meme you'll probably get knocked down to -4 within the hour.
Try to add something of value to a conversation. It doesn't have to be a post filled with academia and algorithms, but it should in general be something that has a value at least slightly above the time someone will spend reading your post.
Lastly, if you get blasted or down voted don't take it too personally. You're going to forget about it within a couple of days, so why stress so hard now?
Most people take the karma system for granted, and think it's simple. But if you haven't encountered it before it clearly isn't as your post shows. Many people come here from Reddit and thus have an implicit understanding of the arrows and the karma system. But if this is your first experience using such a system how are you to know?
Founders should look at their own software with this post in mind - things may seem simple once you understand how they work, but do your customers really understand your product? If they aren't you are probably missing some big opportunities.
some quick example, taken these from my own history just because that's what i know (but you can see examples everywhere):
- voted down for no reason (it was a useful, informed comment) and no explanation - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1190927
- receiving no votes despite being (closest to) the correct answer; a nerdgasm of technically correct but irrelevant info gets 9 votes - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1194538
voting helps introduce "real world" social pressure into an online community, but here the feedback loop is way too strong. the result is an echo chamber, because people like affirmation, and because it's easier to vote on whether items "state the group consensus" rather than actual useful content.
things might be fixed by not displaying karma, or not displaying vote counts, or making voting "cost" karma, or similar, but the people who run the site don't have the time or inclination to experiment.
in short, as i said, the best thing to do is ignore karma.
(Although on the plus side it's already received a couple of upvotes since you posted this link.)
The second one I'm not really sure. I think the reply to yours got a boatload of votes because it speaks to the consensus here at HN.
Discovery and mini-recognition for sharing.
I can't remember how many times I've had a boring day and writing a comment or posting a favorite link has helped upvote my mood. Yes, HN is addictive but it is a community. Real people. Real opinions. Tons of wicked smart people and Renaissance men and women.
I lurked for a long time before even registering.
The doc files and books will be waiting for me when I'm getting into nontrivial features.
HN's points are like Who's Line is it Anyway. They really don't matter outside. If your Nick name becomes recognized it can have an impact.
Generally you get a better response by being nice in threads like this - karma bombing the guys responses isn't going to help much. A 0 seems fair for some of the comments; but -4 (which some of the comments are oscillating to) feels a little OTT.
Maybe dial it off a bit; and hopefully sambeau will start to figure things out and in time we'll have another solid member :)
I can remember a few situations when someone posted something particularly controversial, got mobbed, and ended up with -100 or worse.
Such is life. It's not real - but it hurts a little as this is my main source of internet.
The arrows (up and down) are to vote. If you don't have a down arrow, it because you don't have enough karma.
Also, in the past there have been times that I have accidentally clicked the upvote button in an attempt to re-activate my browser window, and found that there was no way for me to undo that, whereas on reddit if I hit the upvote button again it cancels out!
[people] are, frankly, douchebags
Are also discouraged :)
But fair enough.
For me, voting doesn't have to do with agreeing with the poster. I tend to upvote comments if I believe they add some value to the parent topic, give me some insight, or teach me something new...
It works similarly in a real conversation, wherein folks will automatically tune out someone (based on their preferences) after a while.
This has the downside of ignoring potentially interesting comments by someone having bad karma. But then again that's why its a reputation system - you make/break a reputation over a period of time.
The long-and-short is that you shouldn't post a reply unless it contains new information that requires the context of the comment you're replying to. (New information that stands on its own probably should be a top-level comment.)
Sounds like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambo_%28racial_term%29