Testing the effects of hiding downvotes in r/politics | Hacker News Reader

Testing the effects of hiding downvotes in r/politics

reddit.com

15 pointsMrJagil10 comments

Was hoping this had some effect, making it less of a one track cesspool of ideology but alas, not yet. There used to be some sort of discussion that took place on there but now it's all "fall in line" with the Narrative.

"fall in line" is exactly what HN is about. Someone once quoted an old article that used the word "oriental" to describe Asian people, and someone on HN said that was highly offensive. I replied and said based on multiple conversations I've had with Asian friends I don't think it's an offensive term.

Well it turns out Scott the HN mod ultraliberal from San Fransisco thought that was reason enough to shadowban me forever on HN. That's the game here -- agree with Silicon Valley/San Francisco liberal politics or be banned.

You weren't shadowbanned: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12703655. That was after many violations of the site rules and several warnings.

> agree with [...] liberal politics or be banned

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13110004

Their methodology was garbage considering that mobile users were not affected (since they can't hide down voting on most mobile clients).

In any case WRT to political Reddits down votes are essential for subscribers to remove troll posts (which are very frequent) since mods are hesitant to remove posts even when they're obviously intended to incense the subscribers.

It's a difficult situation to try to make a decision.

Just curious, isn't there some sort of "contest" or competition mode that hides scores? Or is that only for a particular post and can't be applied for all posts going forward and hence not applicable here?

Is there an online politics and policy forum that for its topics matches the quality that HN achieves on technical topics (or does better)? Specifically, I mean the knowledge value of comments, the expertise and sophistication, and the lack of flaming and trolling.

I have yet to find one with a signal to noise ratio that is even nearly worth my time. Most are filled with misinformation, partisan spin, and propaganda attacks, none of which I learn much about (except what the latest misinfo, spin, and propaganda is). I want a forum that's focused on informing its members.

It's not much better but some times there is good info on r/askpolitics

Give /r/NeutralPolitics a shot.

It's a heavily moderated subreddit focusing on well sourced content.

Essentially, if a comment(fact) doesn't have a respected source attached it gets booted.

Thanks! At first glance that looks pretty good. At least, no flames or propaganda (so far).

I find it impossible to believe that there are no bots or paid marketing shills on Reddit.

If you were to hide downvotes, this would only affect “honest” users, and not bot farms using APIs or web extensions.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com