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Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

All: these Epic vs. Apple threads, and $BigCo vs. $BigCo threads in general, have unfortunately been seeing more name-calling, accusations of manipulation, flamebait/unsubstantive posts, and other things that break the HN guidelines. If you comment, can you please avoid that? Reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html would help.

The idea here is: if you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do. Remember that every post you make has a non-negligible impact on the community. If we all treat this place like the discussion forum we'd like to have, eventually we'll have it.

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This is a stub comment to collect the replies so we can collapse them, to prevent offtopicness. Sorry, no-JS users.

Unfortunately, supporting a brand as team sports is a thing like supporting a political party as team sports is.

HN is, hopefully, better than most places on the internet as there are lots of people willing to decide each issue on its merits, and also recalibrate their positions continually in the light of events,

HN is not better in that way, or else the comment you’re replying to wouldn’t have needed to posted. HN users often bring preexisting and inflexible views to new discussions, on topics such as GateKeeper, GPL licensing, and ‘freedoms’. Unpopular positions on such topics are frequently unwelcome in discussions, even when presented with good reasoning and respectful tone. HN users often use downvotes to hide content they disagree with, rather than to hide content of low quality alone. HN users often use conversational warfare and personal attacks to diminish the views of others. We have more than earned this chastisement by the mods over the past few months.

When I downvote for low quality, I often have the distinct impression that the recipient of the downvote would not understand or admit to themselves the quality deficit I had in mind and certainly wouldn't correctly attribute the downvote to it. It's always easier to believe that you're being downvoted simply because people disagree with you.

Of course, everyone has to be their own judge in every particular case, but there's so much room for disagreement that generalized interpretations of downvoting behavior just aren't convincing.

That's all true, but I'm not sure that's relevant. I agree with the GP, not because my posts are downvoted, but because I see respectful, thoughtful posts from established users of reasonable karma downvoted into greyed-out territory for no obvious reason other than that their opinions (or their facts) are not popular. This includes posts I agree and disagree with, so I don't think it's necessarily bias. I also think it is behavior that has become endemic (although I may think so because I find myself having trouble not doing that).

Introspecting into the occasions when I myself downvote out of disagreement it is usually:

1. I think the other person "doesn't get it."

2. I lack the time to offer a substantive opinion.

3. The other party has demonstrated either: a. A tendency to view statements ungenerously or; b. that they already know The One True Way.

4. Some combination of the above.

Edit: List formatting.

Y'all may wish to evaluate whether #2 has an undertone of 'instead of accepting their argument', as we human beings have a latent tendency to find the easiest way to reject contradiction. I think that the below thought process, whether conscious or unconscious, is affecting downvoting behavior on most online forums that permit unmoderated downvotes:

"I'm confident that I'm right and they're wrong, but their argument is very well put, and after a minute of thinking about it I can't find any way to contradict their viewpoint. I'll just downvote it now so that I can mentally dismiss it and move on without giving it further consideration, because otherwise it'll continue bothering me that I might be wrong."

(And, to parent: thank you for taking the time to reason through this and consider your own actions. I'm not sure where I stand on #1 at all. I'll have to think on it a while longer than a day.)

> Unfortunately, supporting a brand as team sports is a thing like supporting a political party as team sports is.

My take is the exact opposite: this episode is an opportunity to air grievances regarding each company, which by themselves have amassed a bunch of reasons for customers and end users to dislike them. There are no good guys in this story, only bad guys whose evilness outstages the other's evilness.

I agree but here is my take: These companies don't deserve this much of your attention or feelings. I have worked for Amazon and Google, and at the end of the day neither is a place with feelings. I have a lot of love for co-workers in both places and was part of some amazing products. I think I would say the same if I ever worked at Apple.

For me, like in others, Apple sure brings up a lot of feelings for some reason. I have gone to from hating to loving to hating to loving. Now I think they are currently on a really good iteration of products and I will use them when it makes sense for me. If they hit a rough patch I will try something else.

As for the 30% cut etc, I can't get emotional about that. There are so much bigger issues in the world. You have democracy, global warming, nculear weapons, war and famine.

> As for the 30% cut etc, I can't get emotional about that. There are so much bigger issues in the world. You have democracy, global warming, nculear weapons, war and famine.

I can’t get emotional about the 30% cut either, but I can and do get emotional about locked-down computing devices. For a kid that grows up only or primarily using a smartphone rather than a laptop, what chance do you think they have to learn how this stuff works? If you use an iPhone, you can’t even begin to write software for it without also having a Mac, and it certainly doesn’t make its inner workings apparent.

Kids only having access to phones and not laptops is a thing that really happens, especially among lower-income families: https://www.vox.com/2020/4/9/21200159/coronavirus-school-dig...

And speaking of democracy, when companies lock down devices such that the manufacturer must approve any software that runs on them, what do you think the impact is on users of those devices when the government of a less-democratic country pressures the manufacturer to remove apps they find inconvenient? See China’s take on VPN apps on iOS.

The more we teach people that computers are magic and design systems such that huge distant companies dictate how it works, the more the balance of power shifts away from individuals. These things have real-world impact. I’m not just picking on Apple here, they’ve just gone further than most so far; this kind of attitude is endemic in our industry, though.

Fortunately the US legal system does not work like that, because while the issue isn't important to you, actually it turns out the issue is important to Epic.

And I think I can sympathize with them, considering 30% of my revenue is walking out the door to a company that charges both consumers for the hardware and companies for the right to send binaries to a user.

I'm sympathizing with you (well maybe, don't know exactly what you are making :-), but not really with Epic. Don't really think they are in it for good reasons.

> I agree but here is my take: These companies don't deserve this much of your attention or feelings.

None of the arguments are emotional responses. All arguments are rational responses to the problems that both Apple and Epic Games creates with their modus operandi, and the comments we see about this issue boil down to people pointing out how the modus operandi of these companies again havr negative effects.

> There are no good guys in this story, only bad guys whose evilness outstages the other's evilness.

I'm not a stakeholder in Apple or Epic. I don't possess products from either. That said, I'm inclined to view epic's actions here as closer to civil disobedience, specifically in that epic is playing the long game to prove their opinion that Apple's contractual terms are anti-competitive.

Because it maps so effectively to civil rights struggles for me and likely for others as well (sidebar — I'm not white), I can see why this topic gets pretty heated. It's not so much about evil v. evil as it is about one group feeling oppressed v. another feeling offended at (their team) being accused of oppression.

More like: Apple is offering a take it or leave it deal. Epic doesn't find it acceptable, and is willing to lose access to the store and take Apple to court. They clearly think that taking a shot at breaking the monopoly is worth it. It isn't civil rights, it's business.

> (sidebar — I'm not white)

Thank you.

Can you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN? You've been doing it repeatedly and we've asked you repeatedly not to. You've also posted substantive comments. That's great; please keep those and drop the others.

Then there are outright attacks like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24045935, which we would have banned you for if we had seen it at the time. Please don't do those any more.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and using HN in the intended spirit, we'd be grateful.

Trying to move a conversation about Apple and Epic Games into social justice politics territory (i.e. the comment I replied to here) is definitional flamebait.

And yes, I called that guy a stupid fuck only after my two civil comments both got flagged, one including a source. I'd say I acted in good faith there, and got flagged by the community. The level of toxic use of downvote/flag on this site is quite apparent, and maybe mods should find a different approach on moderating or even allowing non-technical topics. Comments or discussion on those topics is constantly slanted in a disgusting manner, and I could easily lose my own downvote rights for bothering to participate.

PS: I'm not white. Will I get protected by moderation now that I've pointed this out, or do I need to throw that in to every one of my comments as if it is relevant? Or am I just fucked because I'm not a leftie who feels compelled to use my race as a blunt object when engaging people online?

That's because you're on HN and you and others are reasonable people :)

People in the more general population definitely support Company A or B as if these were sports team, you can in fact find this on the linked article.

Indeed fanboyism is a thing, but personally I don't see it in this case. I see arguments accusing a monopolistic app store manager who is enforcing draconian guidelines to abuse it's monopoly, and I see arguments accusing a software vendor with a long history of abuse getting locked out of a plstform it by violating its terms and conditions when attempting to avoid paying for it's use. None of these actions are cheerable.

that's well put. i'll admit, i'm mostly reading these threads for the satisfaction of seeing the grievances aired with increasing volume and frequency.

It is politics because it inevitably involves demands of government intervention, often of frankly questionable wisdom.

That is distinct between the emacs vs vi sort of social identity dichotomies. Coke isn't trying to ban pepsi or demand they change their formula.

But what if you have invested in a brand, and it is paying your salary?

"supporting a brand as team sports is a thing like supporting a political party as team sports is"

This may be true at times, but the assumption of the same is the root of a lot of the toxic behavior. You cannot be neutral or even in agreement with Apple's position without being a "fanboy", or giving into the "cult of Apple", etc.

If you didn't already, consider taking look at the details/summary elements (https://caniuse.com/#search=summary) which provide a non-JS method for collapse-by-default and as of late have quite good evergreen support. They're fairly versatile, I've even used them recently for JS-free context menus. The only gotcha (the 80% implementation part) is in consistently overriding their default styles on all platforms.

@dang: You previously said in another comment:

> The idea here is: if you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do. "Boo $BigCo", "yay $BigCo" fan-v.-antifan cage matches are not curious conversation. We want curious conversation.

If you really desire that, then please consider making some fundamental changes to how HN voting and auto-moderation works.

I just saw a comment pop up and get downvoted into the gray WHILE IT WAS STILL AT "0 minutes ago": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24314105

Currently, every HN mechanism seems designed to make these "conversations" one-sided, where $SideA just gets to pile on $SideB with abandon and all $SideB can do is watch:

• Any user that piles on $PitchforkTarget gets tens of upvotes.

• Any comment that does not pile on $PitchforkTarget gets downvoted, no matter how substantive or thoughtful it is.

• It’s not enough to just not support $PitchforkTarget; simply remaining neutral is enough to get downvoted.

• A few downvotes in a row makes you unable to post anything anywhere on HN for several hours.

All this comes together to say: “When there’s a mob against $PitchforkTarget, join it or stay out of it.”

HN does not allow the "wrong" side a chance to be heard, and punishes users for having the "incorrect" opinion. I am literally afraid to post anything by now on such topics.

This is NOT a conversation, this is an echo chamber.

Comments sometimes get downvoted in the first minute. That's just how stochastic processes work if you have enough data, and there are a lot of people reading these threads.

These discussions are not one-sided—they're two-sided at least, which is one reason people get so mad at each other. Each side feels like the discussion is one-sided against it though.

I certainly agree that internet dynamics favor indignation, but that's not specific to HN and it's not clear what any technical changes could do to mitigate it. We do everything we can as moderators.

This is inaccurate: "A few downvotes in a row makes you unable to post anything anywhere on HN for several hours". Rate limiting isn't based on votes. Moderators rate-limit accounts when they post too many low-quality comments too quickly and/or get involved in flamewars. There are also some software filters that can lead to rate limits, such as for new accounts.

> Comments sometimes get downvoted in the first minute.

Making them invisible to other readers and pushing them down, like the example [0] above.

All it takes is, what, 2 or 3 downvotes to prevent thousands of other users from even seeing a comment?

> These discussions are not one-sided—they're two-sided at least

On this very page, there were only 2 comments for most of the time, without clicking "More": Yours, and the one favoring Epic.

Any comments with an opposing view appeared briefly before being driven out in under a minute, again like that example [0].

> it's not clear what any technical changes could do to mitigate it.

On Reddit, some communities hide karma scores for a specified amount of time.

HN could do the same: Do not show the score and do not let the score affect a comment's visibility for N hours.

That would at least ensure that every voice has a chance to be heard, and reduce the emotions which result from seeing yourself instantly downvoted if you don't agree with the louder voices.

For spam and more severe violations, there's always the Flag button.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24314105

As for

> Rate limiting isn't based on votes. Moderators rate-limit accounts when they post too many low-quality comments too quickly and/or get involved in flamewars.

I had never encountered that in all my 6 years on HN, until recently when I tried to take the side of the mob's targets as loudly as the voices decrying them in such "conversations".

I'm surprised this kind of topic inspires such discourse. I wonder what makes it different than other topics.

It touches on multiple axes of discussion that can often be found here:

- The rights of the individual/company compared to the good of the public.

- The right of an individual to control that which they bought. Also, whether and what you buy compared to license the use of.

- Anti-competitive behavior and monopolies (as distinct concepts, whether one applies doesn't preclude a different answer for the other).

- Very large companies and the amount of control they have over individuals and their rights.

These are all vibrant topics of discussion on HN, and this includes, and in some cases epitomizes, aspects of all of those and more.

I think these all also touch on deeper aspects of our personal stories and the emotions we feel about them. See the post about a non-white person viewing it as a battle between an oppressed party and a party upset at being viewed as an oppressed party.

Although people like to believe they think rationally, especially here; the truth is, none of us is capable of doing so all the time. We all bring things to the table. And I think each of the things you mention touches all of us pretty deeply, as it has to do with all of our individual standings in society and our freedom to live our lives.

Plus as it's HN, there's a lot of people who want to have control over what their customers do with their products. lol. It's like those threads where some company is exposed for spying on their users, where a bunch of people argue that it's just telemetry and they wouldn't know what their customers wanted if they didn't spy on them and stuff.

These faction wars exist for most brands that have any adversarial relationship or buy-in.

Another major example is Xbox vs Playstation. Often because mom is only going to buy you one and not both, so now you're part of that faction when duking it out online. That's certainly how I spent my summer at age 15.

Ideally you grow out of caring which corporation stacks more money, though. Very boring hobby.

As a dev I feel very passionate about open hardware platforms. I don't really care about epic, but the fact they are taking on this fight regardless of motives makes me very happy.

That could be a factor.

I think the fact that there are many devs here who deal with and depend on Apple is much more significant though.

It's a topic that most people can relate to and pits two complicated viewpoints ("user/developer access to hardware" and "vendors keeping their platform from becoming a cesspool of spam and low-quality content") with notes of other important topics ("freedom of speech", "monopolies").

Tribalism, sunk-cost etc.

If this discussion was on Reddit or similar is would probably more one-sided both due to the number of people who play games and the proportionally lower amount of people who have spent a lot of money on Apple products than on HN (accidental humblebraggging regarding your credit card bill seems relatively prevalent here)

I can immediately see that you are biased as your comment implicitly implies that everyone buying Apple products is an idiot who buys overpriced hardware on credit just for the status symbol.

Consider that instead we are professionals that need the best tool possible that works and is functional

Both Apple and Epic are exceptionally.... "controversial" companies that people have Thoughts on.

Tie that in with the usual Software Freedoms and people wishfully thinking they one day will be in Apple's shoes.

It's Apple. 'Nuff said.

(More specifically, it's Apple and Fortnite. Two very popular franchises.)

I am really curious how this stub comment functionality works on the backend. How does the dashboard looks dang?

I just did it manually. That is, I posted the stub like I would any other comment, and then used a REPL to move the replies to my top-level comment and make them children of the stub. There's no specific code support beyond that, though I've done it often enough that I've thought maybe I should write something. Does that answer your question?

Yes. I was expecting a dashboard of some kind given you seem to do this often.

Workaround (kind of) for nojs users: these comments are available via the api, so you can access them via your choice of app or alternative UI (there are some sites around that put a different interface around the api).

I agree, but I think the downvoting provides all of the corrective feedback your target audience needs to learn this.

I'm not so sure about that. Downvotes are as much an indicator of outspokenness as they are that one's post is repugnant. Unfortunately lots of people love to downvote posts they do not agree with, or don't support their chosen side

Unfortunately lots of people love to downvote posts they do not agree with

This behavior has been given blessings.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17996858

I'm not sure that's exactly what they meant. If someone writes a comment with an incorrect fact, it's common to see it downvoted. It also happens with rude or humorous comments.

But it also happens with opinions, no matter how thoughtful, rational and well written the comment is. Even with true facts that someone happens to dislike. I'm avoiding certain topics as long as I can and following pg's advice in What you can't say. It's not worth it. Actually I'm avoiding most topics that I find interesting directly for me, begining with the technical ones.

I would also like a new feature in HN: giving up the right to vote.

You’re avoiding certain topics, even ones you are interested in because of the downvote behavior, impacting even “thoughtful, rational and well written” comments?

Please let me know if I’ve misread you. But interesting.

Specially the ones I'm interested. It's mostly others' comments that I see downvoted. With mine I see another problem: responses use to be completely unrelated to the point I was trying to make.

I'm not an English native speaker and ellaborating in technical topics is more difficult than in pop-sci or net folklore. Spending a long time composing a comment just to see it misunderstood or downvoted is discouraging.

If you take a look at my recent comments, there was someone complaining that he could not control his browser completely. I've had some success using Chromium Embedded Framework. I suggested that and got a -2. Why? I don't know, because it was a post about Firefox? So what? Someone that disliked another thing I said?

It doesn't matter, but it happens to be my most technical comment in weeks, maybe months. Other of my comments with platitudes are much upvoted.

Most discussions are polarized. Sometimes I start to write a comment writing a disclaimer saying that I'm not in side X, but... when I notice that, I stop and cancel. And that's not only politics or bigco.

I completely understand you, friend. Personally given up trying to pacify other commenters and just speak my truths. That doesn’t mean going out of my way to offend people with my words, I try hard to NOT do that-but I’m also not going out of my way to appease them either.

I think the problem with downvotes is that they tend to make the comment invisible. Initial downvotes don't reflect the community unless it's a general consensus (political flame bait).

They get buried and then no one ever sees them to upvote. The visibility in the absence of raw numbers works as a reference and sometimes it is misleading.

Oh now suddenly shills exist.

Not shills—fans.

Real shilling/astroturfing is a different phenomenon. It certainly exists, but from everything I've looked at, it's orders of magnitude less common than fans making up bogus accusations about shilling.

> Not shills—fans.

> Real shilling/astroturfing is a different phenomenon. It certainly exists, but from everything I've looked at, it's orders of magnitude less common than fans making up bogus accusations about shilling.

This is interesting... how many orders of magnitude?

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