Ask HN - I don't understand the up/down arrows behavior ... | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN - I don't understand the up/down arrows behavior ...

I'm finding that on some threads there are comments I can up or down mod, but other comments I can only up mod. I thought it might be because I couldn't downmod people with more karma than I have, but then I found a two comments by the same user, and I could downmod one but not the other.

I'm very confused by this - not that it really matters - but I'd like to understand. Can anyone here provide an explanation?

Thanks.

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What confuses me is that there is not a man page that explains the workings of news.yc Parts of it can be pieced together in SEARCHING - or in articles like the Feb 4 newsnews on new comment/color-highlighting feature. Nor have I seen an explanation of why no man page (e.g., "if you dont' understand how it works you're too noob a hacker for these pages" or "we don't explain it all because we don't want it to be too easy to hack the site" (i.e., beat the system) ). As an admitted noob, I remain... puzzled.

You can get the source here: http://arclanguage.org/install

open source is awesome. open source is not, however, a replacement for explanations, which are often briefer and more broadly understandable.

This is arc code - try reading it, I think you'll be surprised. It does takes a little effort [1], but certainly no UML diagrams - there is an especially fun learning curve around learning what the macros do [2], but nothing like the training needed to read theoretical math or CS papers.

1. The tutorial helps: http://ycombinator.com/arc/tut.txt

2. `aif' and `awhen' are good examples not covered in the tutorial: they set "it" variables to the result of the test:

  (mac aif (expr . body)
    `(let it ,expr
       (if it
           ,@(if (cddr body)
                 `(,(car body) (aif ,@(cdr body)))
                 body))))

  (mac awhen (expr . body)
    `(let it ,expr (if it (do ,@body))))

actually, i read the code first. i have a computer science bachelors and masters from mit, which means i have wonderful memories from writing in scheme and list. reading the code is a joy for me.

after working on numerous projects with a wide variety of skills, many not being programming, i have to say that english is often a better answer than code. not everyone reads code. it annoys me that people want my status report rather than reading my repo commit messages and diffs, but at this i can empathize with their perspective. if you really get into alternate education, which i think is a wonderful way to understand multiple perspectives and find respect for a wide range of abilities, you'll find that communication is more about being flexible on the means.

that said, i did just post about using puzzles to get comment scrip (-;

You cannot downmod comments that are older than 24 hours.

That's an interesting point that I shall explore. However, it's not the whole story. Although I wouldn't want to, I cannot downmod your comment. That might be explained by the fact that it's a response to mine.

I'm still not completely clear on the logic, but some of the factors involved are surfacing.

Is there a complete explanation somewhere, rather than just some reverse engineering?

Of this feature, yes. See under 4 August at the bottom of the page:

http://ycombinator.com/newsnews.html

I don't know about in general though. There are a "mythical" things about this site that sort of just happen, and you get used to. I don't know if there's a full explanation somewhere!

I think there's also something in place to prevent your massively downvoting a single person. It seems to me that if I downvote somebody twice or thrice, I'll find that other comments of theirs become off-limits.

Because you posted the 'original story', you can't downvote direct replies to it.

When it happens to me it is because I have replied to that comment. I assume that it is because if you replied to a comment you DO think it is worth reading it, and it surely contributed to the discussion, therefore no sense in downmodding it

You can't downmod a response to your own comment. That's the only anomaly I've seen.

There is also some sock-puppet detection as well - this is to prevent you creating accounts and upvoting yourself. Presume it also prevents you downmodding every comment by someone you don't like too...

I've seen it occasionally go awry - you'll upvote and the vote just disappears.

As Dasil says you cant down mod replies to your comments (for obvious reasons :D).

I find I can vote on comments I reply to... (it doesnt, to me, appear to be logical that if your replying you agree with the post).

Well I cannot downmod comments I have already replied to. Up/downmodding does NOT mean you agree or disagree with that comment, it means you find it useful/interesting or that it has added something/contributed to the discussion

how do you mean by already ?

I can still down mod the comments in this thread that I have replied to.

EDIT: wait NOW I see :) I cant down the above comment. Ignore me :)

if you down mod and then reply does the karma get removed?

good question.

I volunteer to be downmodded and replied too :)

downmodded and here's your reply.

I can't down mod ANY comments. I don't mind, really. I'm a pretty positive guy.

Well, it looks like I was looking at comments older than 24hrs (can downmod comments I have replied to, in the last few minutes): so I am wrong on this :-)

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