Comment by ryguytilidie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ryguytilidie | Hacker News Reader

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This was his point:

"Voting should be independent of opinion, should it not? Voting should reflect the merit of a post regardless of its popularity, right? Comments with little more substance than "cops should die" shouldn't be at the top of a comment page, right?"

Sentence by sentence just to make it easy on you:

"Voting should be independent of opinion, should it not? Voting should reflect the merit of a post regardless of its popularity, right?"

What does this even mean? How on earth would this work? He's genuinely upset that voting reflects peoples opinions? I'm shocked that someone could say this and not immediately realize what a dumb thing it is to say. But yeah, this problem in his mind, will be solved by finding a different community, with opinions he likes. See the problem now?

"Comments with little more substance than "cops should die" shouldn't be at the top of a comment page, right?""

Right. And they aren't. So what is the complaint? Oh right, its a stupid strawman with no merit whatsoever, which i pointed out. If BlackDeath3 wants to throw a tantrum when someone says cops could die, he's more than welcome, but the idea that this is what he bases his argument on when no one said anything like that is utter lunacy. I cannot imagine going around being this irrationally angry. It's like being a republican and just screaming BENGHAZI!!! whenever confronted with something unsavory about your own party. Try living on planet earth with some rational people.

>What does this even mean? How on earth would this work? He's genuinely upset that voting reflects peoples opinions? I'm shocked that someone could say this and not immediately realize what a dumb thing it is to say. But yeah, this problem in his mind, will be solved by finding a different community, with opinions he likes. See the problem now?

If I think that somebody has said something worth exposure, I upvote it. If not, I downvote it. It has nothing to do with whether I agree with it or not. Does it contribute to the conversation? Is it needlessly inflammatory? These are the sorts of questions I ask and answer when voting.

You can argue that "worth exposure" is subjective, and it is, but I didn't say (or mean) vote objectively. One can try, but mostly I just meant that one should pay more attention to the merit of a post's content, rather than their personal agreement with it.

>Right. And they aren't. So what is the complaint?

You're too focused on the specifics. Shitty comments get upvoted all the time. Thoughtful but unpopular comments get downvoted all the time. Anybody who has been around these sorts of places (HN, Reddit, etc.) for more than an hour has seen it happen.

And by the way, the "cops should die" comment quite literally was the top comment in this thread at one point. Perhaps you weren't here early enough to see it, but I did, and that's what made me say what I said.

"You're too focused on the specifics. Shitty comments get upvoted all the time. Thoughtful but unpopular comments get downvoted all the time. Anybody who has been around these sorts of places (HN, Reddit, etc.) for more than an hour has seen it happen."

Probably the first time I've ever seen someone lament the idea that someone focused on the specific example they gave...

Anyway, I've seen this happen on reddit plenty, but I would honestly say its a distant second place to the bigger problem, which is what is happening here. Someone like you gets the idea in their head that "saying thing x is popular amongst community y". At that point, all logic goes out the window and actual, reasonable evidence is ignored at the cost of any sort of evidence that remotely confirms your hypothesis. Was the top comment of a thread something bad about cops for a few seconds? Hey, that must mean everyone here wants cops to die, which means the voting system is flawed which means I should throw a tantrum and threaten to leave the community. Like I said, I have no problem with responding to people who actually said this and discussing it, but when you start throwing tantrums about things that weren't said, there is a disconnect between a logical world where people can have conversations, and the world where youre sitting in a room by yourself mashing the keyboard and convincing yourself everyone else is stupid. I'd say you'd probably be better off letting these insane thoughts go...

I tried coming back to you, nearly a day later, and civilly explaining myself and my position, again. Another poster has even explained my position to you (oddly enough, they have no trouble understanding the points I'm making here). Still, you have insisted on misinterpretation of my posts, picking out and making a big deal of small details, and generally being an asshole to me since the very first post you sent me (which pretty much set the tone for our entire conversation).

It's clear that nobody will be persuading anybody here, that we're both right in our own eyes, and this is going nowhere. I'm tired of trying to explain myself to you. I'm tired of you constantly ending your posts with (not so) clever remarks about how I'm a stupid trolling troll. I'm tired of you. You're argumentative for argumentation's sake (which is fine when you can listen to reason) and I'm really, actually, truly done with you now. Bye.

In response to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7241518 (because apparently I'm submitting posts too often):

I've clearly explained above the way that I think the voting system should work, and I'm not even close to the only person who thinks that way (see: Reddiquette). You've crossed the line from argumentative to disingenuous.

I realize that you strongly dislike me, but please don't allow that to cloud your vision when reading my posts.

"I realize that you strongly dislike me, but please don't allow that to cloud your vision when reading my posts."

Uhhhhh, I know nothing about you at all. I simply mocked the fact that you threw a tantrum over the voting system on this site, said you were leaving (yet you're still making posts at the frequency that you're literally making the algo block you because you're posting too often...), said "I wish the top post wasn't always some no content crap like 'all cops should die'" when a) It didn't say that and b) The actual top post was, quite literally, the exact opposite of your mid-tantrum prediction. If you've taken me mocking your hilariously bad point to mean a strong dislike, I really don't know what to tell you. Perhaps the rest of us don't hold the same irrational grudges you do? But the idea of this level of emotion for a stranger on the internet is simply too foreign for me to understand.

"You're argumentative for argumentation's sake (which is fine when you can listen to reason) and I'm really, actually, truly done with you now. Bye."

So should I take this to mean that you're going to be responding to my posts literally hundreds of times over the next hour? Because thats what happened when you said you were done with HN? Or was that because you were just being an attention whore making a shit point?

"Another poster has even explained my position to you (oddly enough, they have no trouble understanding the points I'm making here)."

I love the "I've been totally civil" next sentence "heres a not at all subtle dig from me! LOOK HOW CLEVER I AM" Bravo for pretending you're taking the high road? I guess you convinced yourself and that seems to be all that matters for you. But yeah, one guy agreed with you while everyone else downvoted you. I guess this is better than you normally do so I can see why you're proud.

In closing, no, I don't strongly dislike you, or even care about you at all. I simply think that throwing a tantrum about a community, saying it is so terrible you have to leave because your opinions aren't popular, and then making up a bunch of idiotic, disingenuous straw men to make yourself feel better is stupid and is nothing but a detriment to this community. As I said originally, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

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