

Ask HN: Why do you care so much that you're being down voted? - jyap

A pet peeve and growing trend on Hacker News is someone getting down voted for a comment, then writing another comment asking why they were down voted and then an ensuing discussion as to why they were down voted.  Discussions of being down voted are largely off topic and are just plain annoying.  Please stop caring so much about how much "karma" points you have.  "Karma" is just a virtual reputation system.  Please just stick to writing well thought out comments.  Why do you care so much that you're being down voted?
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ColinWright
For me it's not the karma, it's the implication that my well-intentioned
comment that was intended to add value has been considered by someone in "the
community" to be the opposite, and to be of negative value.

If that happens then there is a mis-match between my understanding and
reality, and as a mathematician, engineer, hacker, and general learner for
life, I want to know why. When people disagree with me it's an opportunity to
learn, and I want to take that opportunity, especially from people who have
chosen to self-identify with this "community."

~~~
nkurz
Encouraging a comment per down vote would have a strong negative impact on the
readability of the site. I don't know what the daily number of down votes is,
but I wouldn't be surprised if it's greater than the current number of
comments. The on-topic comments would be overwhelmed by the meta-conversation.

But there definitely is value in providing this feedback. I think the solution
is to offer a quieter way of doing so than via a globally visible comment.
This feedback should be public to maintain civility and concision, but should
be outside of the main stream of the conversation.

My proposal is here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4209304>

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nodata
Why is it not okay for people to try and find out why they're being downvoted,
but it's okay for you to post a whole topic talking about how annoying you
find it?

In both cases the person, be it the downvotee or you, is trying to discover
the reason for a behaviour.

Edit: it's also considered poor form to order people to modify their behaviour
to match your particular preferences.

~~~
jyap
It's not poor form. The Hacker News Guidelines state
(<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>): Resist complaining about being
downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

It is poor form to not abide by the house rules.

~~~
nodata
I said it was poor form to order people to modify their behaviour to match
your particular preferences.

The house rules mention _complaining_ about downvotes. As you've found out,
people are wanting to learn _why_ they've been downvoted, they're trying to
understand. That's not complaining.

~~~
waterlesscloud
That's a theory, but in practice it's often just a very thin veil for
complaining about being downvoted.

Complaining about being downvoted earns a near-automatic downvote from me.
It's the exact opposite of contributing something useful.

I hate it when I get downvoted, but I suck it up. Sometimes I knew it was
coming, and sometimes it's only temporary and the comment ends up with a good
score.

But regardless of how or why, I take it and move on.

------
georgemcbay
Personally, I don't care if I'm downvoted. Given that I don't usually say
incredibly stupid things here, when I'm downvoted it is almost always a
temporary phenomenon (most often it seems like fanboy kneejerk downvoting
because I said that whatever company/product they love might not be perfect)
that eventually corrects itself, so asking about it wouldn't really serve any
purpose.

I have to admit that when people do say incredibly stupid things (and not just
things I disagree with, but really stupid/unhelpful comments), I love it when
they complain about the downvoting in a subsequent post because then I can
downvote them twice. I'm not sure if that is proper HN etiquette or not, but
I'm guilty of it.

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mooism2
If someone downvotes me, I would indeed like to know why.

If someone downvotes me because they disagree with me, I would prefer they
state their disagreement rather than downvote.

If someone downvotes me because they think I'm being rude, I would like to
know what it is about my comment that they consider rude.

If someone downvotes me for being an Apple/Google/Microsoft fanboy, I would
like the opportunity to disabuse them of that notion.

If someone downvotes me because my comment is incorrect, I would like to know
what the truth is.

Downvoting is sometimes used as a lazy way of saying "This is a poor comment"
(I know, I do it myself sometimes when I am tired). But without saying _why_ a
comment is poor, it is itself a poor form of feedback.

I might come back to a comment I wrote the day before, and in a different
frame of mind be able to see why it has been downvoted. But when I can't see
why, it is frustrating.

I don't really care about my HN karma. It's just a number that tends to go up
sporadically.

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dbecker
In general, when I see a greyed out comments, I can understand why they were
downvoted.

But I occasionally see downvoted comments that seem totally legitimate. If
someone feels negatively about a comment (for reasons other than it being
nonsense or off-topic), the mature thing to do is to explain their
disagreement with the comment.

I agree that asking "why the downvote" is rarely productive. But downvoters
should explain their point of view in addition to (or instead of) downvoting.

------
jyap
From the early comments I think I linked the concept of being downvoted to
"karma" too strongly.

This was because the Hacker News Guidelines state
(<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>): Resist complaining about being
downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

My assumption is that people had read this and largely obey the guidelines.

------
olalonde
If it's not clear, I will ask why I was down voted in order to improve the
quality of my future comments.

> Discussions of being down voted are largely off topic and are just plain
> annoying.

They are pretty easy to ignore: just don't read the child comments of greyed
out comments.

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zedzedzed
Albert Einstien was always downvoted for not being apt in acedemics :) I would
thank my downvoter (and ask him to correct me), man,thats how you learn.

------
alliem
I only see an upvote button, what gives?

~~~
Zimahl
You don't have enough karma to down vote. There isn't a specific place that
tells one what that karma is and I don't have the answer since I still can not
down vote either.

I've heard it's the flat-rate karma of 500. I've also heard that it's a moving
target based on how many users or how much karma is currently out in the
world.

If it is calculated and not flat, it specifically hurts new users while giving
older users more power.

~~~
alliem
So a downvote button is an unlockable, interesting. Where did you learn this?

~~~
Zimahl
It's in the FAQ (<http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html>).

