Poll: Is this trolling? | Hacker News Reader

Poll: Is this trolling?

4 pointscuri33 comments

http://reddit.com/user/consultant_barbie/

Edit: I enjoyed the comments and thus I'm glad they exist. How can that be trolling?

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I don't mean to be curt, but what's the point of this?

It's inane.

Entertainment

I don't think anyone on here would mistake you for curt kobain

Your poll is missing an option: this poll and the link are not really worthwhile.

At least some people here are interested in what is trolling, or not, and what should be allowed or encouraged here, or not.

I reread what I wrote, and I guess it seems a little harsh. I didn't really mean it that way. What I mean is something along the lines of "it's obviously a troll, our attention wasn't needed to figure that out".

I liked the comments and I'm glad they exist. How can that be trolling?

I actually remember this user from Reddit - after having seen the "let's go shopping" thing a few times in comments I just had to see who it was. And even though it is an obvious troll I thought it was OK. I think it was funny as hell. As long as it doesn't spread.

While the comments might be individually amusing, the fact that they are a) sock-puppeting, and b) off topic degrades quality of the discussion overall.

I suppose it depends on your definition of trolling. I think the intent here is to be amusing, and I was under the impression that trolling is supposed to be malicious. I know pg had a recent essay about it, maybe it would give us a definition to go by. I haven't read it yet.

I don't oppose "sock-puppetting". We should judge posts based on their content, not who we think wrote them. Sometimes it communicates better to post different perspectives under different names.

It seems to me that posting under multiple names, if you want, is a natural extension of anonymity and privacy.

(Note I do not "sock-puppet" here. I asked PG and he disapproves.)

Sure, we should judge posts based on content, but someone's motives should be taken into consideration with sock-puppetting. Why does someone want to say something that they don't want to attach their name to? I'm not saying there are or aren't good reasons to do this, but I would be suspicious of comments that someone insisted on making anonymously.

Another problem with sock puppets is that these sites run on the principals of democracy. Allowing multiple accounts ruins that.

I agree that voting with extra accounts is definitely bad.

But a lot of the posters here are anonymous. If you wanted a site with no anonymous people, that's reasonable, but this is not that site.

there's an open argument currently going on about what trolling is at c.l.l. where the S/N ratio is (just a little) greater: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/browse_frm/thr...

Funny a couple times, really annoying after maybe the 5th time. (although I have to admit, they are well written).

I upvoted "yes" but it didn't count

That's what you get for helping others. ;-) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=128746

Hope you get your votes back soon, I like your style.

wow that's really terrible. second on the leaderboard, and in trouble for being a negative influence on the site?

when your rules interfere with top users you have a problem.

Well I don't think that karmabombing another user is a good idea, no matter whether the guy doing it is on the leaderboard or not. I perfectly understand the reasons though, and could easily have done it myself. I'm sure he'll get his voting rights back soon.

I'm not asking for Karma, but isn't it a problem to have a thread that no one will see soon (because it's only on 2 points) which has 14 comments and 17 votes which people might find interesting?

A lot of comments in the thread have more points than the thread itself. Maybe for getting on the front page threads should count as their own score or the score of the highest comment they contain, whichever is higher?

Nah. That would make too much sense. Plus it would take away the top brass's options to censor stuff that users like to talk about because they find interesting, but, say, top people running this don't want to talk about. Or have others talking about.

Like over the summer there was this guy called "Y@mada" who weaved a boring tale of caution and tempering PGs unabashed optimism with some feet on the ground practicality as the economy was going to crash in a major way any second now. Obviously he was wrong because everything is smooth sailing, but PG didn't like this pessimistic world view so despite forums with like, 50-60-70+ posts, eventually the posts would just be deleted / marked "dead", etc.

But try something else. Put up a post like, "Ask YC: Do you sleep on your stomach or on your back, and which do you think is better for an aspiring programmer" and I GUARANTEE YOU that post will be up forever, sparking countless debate.

I fall asleep on my stomach, then roll to my back while sleeping. That's the key to success. Anything less and YOU'LL NEVER GET ACQUIRED!!! Mwhahahaha!

To be clear: I'm not involved in running this site, but I'm happy with how it is managed. Perhaps if you don't like it, another site would be more to your liking? (http://startupping.com/ has some startup related content, for instance). Or perhaps you could adjust enough to get some value out of this one, as well as contribute value of your own? If not, it's not going to make anyone here very happy, neither you nor 'them', and therefore seems a bit of a pointless pursuit.

First, define "value" ... then refer to your own post on "Should Points-Based Ads etc.".

You think it's an interesting idea. I do as well. The poster does. As of now, that's it. Yet that's what I'd expect a lot more on Y.

But so far "is this troll trolling has 2 dozen posts" ... "is t.v. good or bad" attracted PG's attention and the second he comments his army of fanboys instantly add 50 more comments along the lines of "I agree with everything Paul Graham says."

Then new readers see the popularity and get sucked in.

So unfortunately, you could look at thinks like you described above, but something tells me you wish the "Should Popularity-based Advertising" etc. post got as much attention as the "Is T.V. good or bad?" post.

Which I doubt it will. I could be wrong. But I think this time tomorrow you, me and the poster will still be discussing it while everyone is rushing off to make sure everyone knows they agree with whatever post PG just made last.

Honestly when I was refered here I thought most posts would be along the line of the one like Popularity-points advertising, etc.

Creative new ideas meeting with technical talent.

Er, did you read the thread that got him banned? It wasn't clear whether he was a troll or just a total whackjob, but either way he had to go. It wasn't even a borderline case.

Well I do recall something to the effect of not being so quick to drop out of school / quit work and starting a startup without giving thought to the overall state of the economy because it was being artificially propped up by various methods. Now the economy's screwed up for, apparently, precisely that. I don't know how you define trolling or whackjob, but I think that was just common sense. People can't be whackjobs if they make unpopular predictions that wind up coming true.

I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about arguing that Y Combinator is a suicide cult and rambling about mind control conspiracies via the effect of electromagnetic resonance on the brain.

Wow. Got a link or saved copy?

the number of comments on a thread is not related to the value of the post. For example you could post something that most people disagree with. So they all comment stating their disagreement. Other folks come along and vote up the comments since they also dislike the post.

Widespread disagreement that people feel compelled to post about, rather than ignore, is notable!

no, it's not. Making it notable simply promotes flame wars and trolling.

The point is that people already consider it notable (which is why they are replying). When it's not notable, they'll ignore it.

If they considered it important they would upvote it. But they chose not to.

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