
Hacker News: How's that work? - Mz
http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2017/08/hacker-news-how-that-work.html
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combatentropy
The article has some insight into the ranking formulae of stories and comments
--- or maybe they're just educated guesses. It goes back and forth about
whether your karma affects the starting height of your comment. I myself first
thought that your comment appeared at the top of the thread for a flash, that
rank was briefly boosted by novelty. Then I came to believe that it first
popped to the top just for your sake, so that you can see it easily right
after posting it. As soon as you reload the page, your comment goes down to
its rightful place. Or maybe I'm wrong again. Need to read the source code:
[https://github.com/wting/hackernews](https://github.com/wting/hackernews).

And I didn't know about the rare bird known as the vouch button.

The best part about the article is that it encourages you to read Hacker
News's own guidelines,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
It's a great recipe. So much discussion, here and on other sites, would be
better if everyone said the exact same thing minus any personal attack. From
the guidelines:

    
    
      > When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names.
      > E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3"
      > can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
    
      > Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article.
      > "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to
      > "The article mentions that."

------
Tomte
I think the downvote doesn't count when you're also replying to the comment.
Is that so or am I mistaken?

And I don't know what both flagging and downvoting a comment really does. The
downvote makes it greyer, and then the flagging makes it less grey again, so
who knows?

------
DrScump

      Here are the guidelines. If you have never read them, read them. 
    

Wait for it...

    
    
      It is okay to down vote to express disagreement.
    

The guidelines _don 't say that_.

Have up/downvotes become a popularity contest now?

Has HN become Reddit Orange?

I downvote for one of two reasons:

1) a source or reference is misquoted or made-up altogether.

2) a clear error in _reasoning_ was written (e.g. misinterpretation of the
submission of of a stated source).

I don't downvote out of simple _disagreement_. Indeed, I _WANT_ to see well-
reasoned arguments that I may disagree with at first glance.

Am I alone in this?

