19 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 35.7 ms ] thread
Outraged comment taking issue with sock-puppet assertion in second paragraph!
Defensive comment by OP questioning your maternal lineage!
Apology for accidental clicking of downvote button instead of the upvote one.
Request for explanation of rampant downvoting.
You’re probably going to downvote this reply spamming HN with links to the author’s own blog:

http://raganwald.posterous.com/youre-probably-going-to-downv...

Attempt to be helpful by posting the relevant quote formatted as code with horizontal scrolling:

   You may be familiar with social news sites like Hacker News and Reddit. Users can vote for stories they like, comment on those stories, and more crucially, vote for and against each others comments. Voting on comments is a highly imperfect way to shape discourse, mostly because there are two conflicting goals: The first is to moderate discussion and the second is to argue the topic at hand. Ideally, if you don't agree with someone you reply to their comment with a counter-argument disputing their point, and you down vote comments that need moderation, such as comments that are off-topic or comments that descend into Ad Hominem Abuse ("U R Fag"). In practice, users tend to down vote comments to punish each other, and people being people, disagreement ends up being "punished" with down votes. This is widely accepted as harmful, but difficult to stop.
Disdainful rebuttal decrying your rampant sexism for excluding questioning of their paternal lineage.
Sheepish apology from OP begging forgiveness with intense fear of being banned. Self-loathing.
Pointless reply driven by secret fetish for deep threads and textual indentation. Confesses that this is the true reason writing code.
Outrage that anything posted by a long-time HN participant gets upvotes no matter how hard it is trolling off-topic!
Duplicate of a comment already posted twice on blog post to ensure it will be read.
Duplicate of a comment already posted twice on blog post to ensure it will be read.
I like turtles.
Hey look, another turtle.
Complaint about HN turning into Reddit.
(comment deleted)
Inappropriate comparison with a pinch of personal criticism containing a hidden insult involving a fivehead.
Relevant but downvoted and generally ignored comment.
(comment deleted)