

Ask HN:  Does HN rating system unintentionally  encourage flaming? - 10smom

obviously  not intended by HN, but it seems the comments where some one is called out or flamed, get a lot of comments and as a result, points for the creator of post.  Is this fair?  Doesn't it encourage more flaming post or comments?
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10smom
Why was I not allowed to submit a thread?

it kept coming back to submit page? The submission ask if the thread filled
flames of newbie startup entrepeneur was harmful to other newbie startup
trying to learn the ropes and who only come here for seeking support, network
and info? Is it good to accuse them of any other intention then that?

Just an FYI. I have a community website that is for the Parents, cadets,
family and friends of a military service academy (nothing to do with my
startup), I cannot imagine my members treating each other the way I have been
treated in just one thread. Also, ON our site we encourage each other to
posts, not discourage them so we too can have content and discussion worth
while.

Just because this is a extremely active site, should not be a reason for
people that have the power, to do everything in their power, to shut down a
newbies good intentions!

~~~
semanticist
Your community site obviously has very different goals than Hacker News.
Hacker News's primary value is in having a very high signal:noise ratio - the
only way that can continue is by having a very strong community-enforced
standard for what counts as 'noise'.

Your community site, I'd guess, is largely about providing support for parents
and family of cadets - that's an entirely different set of goals and requires
an entirely different set of community values.

It would be a mistake to assume that all communities on the internet behave
the same way.

~~~
10smom
Agreed. But it is still does not make it appropriate or right to question one
intention, publicly, on a site that is set up for s specific purpose, with out
finding out info about them, and to flame them if they think their intention
are other than what the site is here for, and to pile on by down voting all of
ones post, even from days ago.

~~~
semanticist
I disagree most strongly. It absolutely does make it appropriate to question
your intentions because you were behaving in a manner which went against the
long-established norms of this site.

I imagine that anti-war activists probably aren't very welcome on your
military cadet site. If I appeared and talked about how the war in Iraq and
Afghanistan is illegal and US troops keep shooting civilians and their allies,
it wouldn't be very popular.

People might question my intentions, publicly, on a site that is set up for a
specific purposes. They might read back over other comments I'd made that were
more borderline and read them with a new context, where they were simply being
ignored before.

Ultimately, you behaved inappropriately and don't seem to want to acknowledge
that. You created this issue and have fanned the flames to make it worse.

Perhaps this is a really important lesson to learn for your business too: when
you screw up, own the mistake. Don't try and weasel your way around it, admit
it fully and completely and talk about how you can improve to ensure it
doesn't happen again.

If you can't even do that on a discussion site, I wouldn't want to trust that
you'd do it when you make a mistake in your business.

------
brudgers
No. It does not encourage flaming. Being able to downvote posts discourages it
because:

1\. Downvotes give an outlet for expressing disapproval without incorporating
a mechanism for _ad hominem_.

2\. Flames tend to get downvoted.

3\. Flamewars tend to get shut down quickly via moderation.

