

Ask HN: What's the ghost behind the downvotes? - danielnicollet

I got downvoted for some obscure reasons and I feel very bad that my comments were seen as problematic.  One was mentioning someone's mispellings in a thread (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1719975) and the other was about making a comment that was equal to most funny comments around on a not so serious thread (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1718842).<p>This is the strangest thing ever and HN's faq is limited in how it sets the rules.  I never thought I was doing anything counter-productive or negative.  Can you please shed some light please?  Can you explain why my interventions were downvoted when very similar posts in those threads were left or upvoted?<p>Note:  I know there is no way to know why with the way HN is setup but I would like your educated guess.  I just hope Karma on HN is just not a function of how cool, popular or otherwise consensual you are and that people like myself can stay on and bloom with differing styles and views from the majority...  I am no Socrates but I can add value I think.
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jacquesm
I think your spelling correction was downvoted because it contained a spelling
error and because you came off rather paternalizing.

Humor in general is downvoted on HN, especially one liners unless they're
_really_ good.

Don't take it personal.

~~~
byoung2
_you came off rather paternalizing_

Did you mean _patronizing_?

~~~
jacquesm
Doesn't it mean 'to talk to someone as though you're their dad' in English?

That's what I meant.

~~~
byoung2
Paternalizing: disregarding people's freedom and responsibility under guise
and pretense of knowing what would be good and proper for them.

<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/paternalize>

Patronizing: Treat as inferior unduly, talk down to, treat condescendingly.

<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/patronize>

~~~
jacquesm
From that first link:

> to place in a fatherly role.

That's what I had in mind.

Specifically this bit:

"Please spell people. This is not SMS!"

Which (of course) also contains a grammar error.

~~~
byoung2
_to place in a fatherly role_

That's still the incorrect use of the word, and I don't care if I get
downvoted again. Paternalizing refers to the act of treating someone like a
father (e.g. "After the death of his father, Bobby grew to paternalize his
older brother").

~~~
jacquesm
Ah, I get you now, so it's the reverse, someone is not paternalizing when
_they_ treat you as though they are your father ,but you are paternalizing if
you treat someone as though they are your father, is that what you're saying?

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byoung2
_I just hope Karma on HN is just not a function of how cool, popular or
otherwise consensual you are and that people like myself can stay on and bloom
with differing styles and views from the majority_

You can search and find plenty of examples of people who have become
dissatisfied with the way that Hacker News has gone downhill from where it was
a few months or years ago. There has been a tendency in recent months to
downvote people who disagree with you, or point out flaws in your logic.

Just last year, you would only see downvotes for Digg-style zingers or
insensitive comments. Nowadays, you'll get downvoted for persuasive arguments
just because people don't agree with you. And there's no humor at all allowed
anymore. Just the same old stories day after day (look what Apple announced,
look what Arrington said, Rate My Startup, How can I scale my app, should I
learn Ruby?), and a lot of people arguing about who said what about startups
instead of actually starting companies. I think it's time I started reading HN
less and coding more...at least my commits don't get downvoted.

------
jon914
My impression is that pointing out a typo doesn't further the conversation
unless the typo completely alters the meaning of the comment.

~~~
kls
As well dyslexia, is a common problem among right brained people there are a
good deal of right brained designers and developers. dyslexia is something
that they cannot get rid of, they can work to improve it but it cannot be
"cured". Highlighting it can be taken as being an ass to someone with a
disability. The problem is in all other matters they are intelligent so many
are extremely embarrassed of their inability to spell or put sentences
together in proper order as they know individuals will use it to detract from
their message. To knit pick their spelling can be misconstrued as an attempt
to discredit their argument based on a technicality.

~~~
tjpick
I think you mean "nitpick" rather than "knit pick".

~~~
kls
You know I have refrained from the whole HN is going to hell, but to get
downvoted for trying to explain a viewpoint that hey he might have gotten
downvoted by a dyslexic who took it personal (something I have learned to
refrain from doing, by seeing the error of my defensive thinking) and then to
have a troll try to get his +5 funny quota (wrong site sir), at the expense of
my affliction. Knowing full well that yes I do suffer from the affliction is
reprehensible. You sir have reached a new low for this community. It is people
like you that make me feel the fool for defending the community of people here
to have an intelligent discussion.

~~~
lachyg
I accidentally down voted you on this. 100% unintentional. I wish there was a
way of reversing it.

~~~
kls
Don't worry about it, the karma does not mean much to me. I am here for
valuable discussion so long as I have enough karma to participate in the
community it is no big deal. My gripe above was more the principal of the
matter than the actual loss of points.

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rsaarelm
I take the approach that HN conversations are for a very wide audience, so
signal-to-noise ratio is important. Chatty comments, which may be fine in
smaller forums where people know each other better, end up just looking like
extra noise here. I like comments that add to the discussion and aren't
gratuitously argumentative.

Comments on spelling are only productive when spelling errors actually make it
significantly harder to understand something. This wasn't the case with the
message you commented on.

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ww520
Don't worry about it. You have got fans. People got downvoted plenty of times
for perfectly fine comments. And there're voting cliches which colluded here
that were discovered before.

Realize that people here are not your friends or your family. You don't need
acceptance or approval from them. Just be yourself and don't give a fuck. Also
don't take karma too seriously. It's part of the game mechanic of a social
site to make people comment and submit.

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jonp
>> "...but I can add value I think."

I think that's the point. The comment about the spelling mistake didn't add
any value to the discussion. It was distracting and a little rude.

As to why yours was downvoted while others' similar comments weren't: I guess
it's a bit random. Sometimes I'll downvote that sort of comment, sometimes I
won't. But it's never based on username.

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dfhrtjhf
Why do you care? (serious question)

~~~
danielnicollet
First of all, thanks for all the great comments back. I had hoped to get this
sort of input and since I have been involved with HN, I had failed to get a
sense of what the informal tone and etiquette truly is. I think you all have
enlightened me a bit here. As for dfhrtjhf's question above: I just care
because I love many of the contributions of HNers I read here every week and I
want to contribute something back to this community for that very reason. Does
that answer your question?

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J3L2404
"...feel bad that my comments were seen as problematic.."

Refreshing attitude for a message board. You should stay on, keep posting.

