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Downvote Clarification

2 points by rilita ↗ HN
I have been reading Hacker News for some years now. More recently I joined and have been attempting to respond to posts with accurate information. If people object to what I have to say I clarify and also go back and edit my posts to remove things if people seem to be particularly offended or annoyed by what I have to say.

A recent trend that has occurred is that my posts are downvoted if they criticize what other people have to say, regardless of whether or not my statements are accurate or not.

Could the community please clarify to me exactly what votes in the system are supposed to mean? That is, is it a personal opinion of whether you like someones post or not, or should it be more professional? I personally believe that it should be a professional analysis of the post content combined with a small amount of downvotes to try to steer angry individuals into being more cooperative.

If it is just a personal opinion, please say exactly this so I can know to become a sheep to save my rating.

6 comments

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tomw1808
A good friend of mine once said: If you have to criticize something, start by saying something positive. Then say what you want to say, without hurting someone.

I don't know what you are commenting on, but I could imagine you're getting down-voted because things you say are basically right, but maybe hurting peoples feelings about what they programmed/created/crafted in hours and days and maybe even weeks or months of their lives.

my 2cents.

rilita
I'll give you an example by posting in exactly the same way I always do.

When I was in church I heard a sermon that stated that teachers are held to a high accountability level than others, because their words have a great affect on all the people listening to them.

I agree with that notion and think that authors of content should be especially careful not to give out misinformation, and more deeply that they should not spin information to such an extent that it is attempting to manipulate the feelings of others to some end ( often personal ).

I react to articles I see to have a counterpoint to whatever spin exists. The point is to bring some semblance of balance to the discussion rather than having it be one sided.

Another thing is the word 'nice'. The definition of the word 'nice' is basically to be ignorant. It is pleasing to people if you are ignorant and just accept whatever they say. I don't believe in being nice; I think it is detrimental to the community and society in the long run.

If people cannot take the heat of criticism then I don't think they should be spending hours creating articles aimed at a group that contains people who do not agree with what they have to say.

tomw1808
As I think of myself as a nice person, I have to say I see your point, but I guess you didn't understand me right. It has nothing to do _what_ you have to say, rather than _how_: People tend to craft crazy long articles and software, tools and howto's not to hear what they made all wrong. They did this in order to bring benefit to the world (mostly). And they wouldn't publish it if they thought they are not right. If you disagree with their opinion, please do so in a respectful manner. Respectful more often than not also includes being 'nice' - it won't kill you. Still, we are all just normal people, no matter from where.

I guess you also knew that _the_ definition of the word 'nice' is _not_ being ignorant. It's maybe _your_ definition, which is perfectly okay. Well, if it wouldn't mean that you basically just said that all nice people are ignorant. You see where that heads to hopefully...

In contrast to the text above I could've also said the following, which hopefully raises some emotional and super red flags on all ends: Your answer is not really surprising, as people who are attending church on a regularly basis are more often than not very arrogant and also narrow-minded [0]. I react to these answers mostly with disgust. Seeing people who bring invalid examples is as necessary as a car accident[1]. Being arrogant about just anything and anyone who is not agreeing and justifying it with what was once heard in church won't take anyone far on the Internet.

[0] With that sentence I made everyone unhappy, not just you, also everyone who attends Sundays Mass

[1] I didn't mention you, still its offensive.

I hope you see the difference. Be humble, be kind, more people will listen and accept your comments. Not just here - also in your real life. Be to the point. That is my opinion, feel free to disagree.

rilita
Whether you like it or not, the description of being nice has a connotation of being clueless. Obviously the word can be applied to people who are not clueless, but it still has that vibe about it.

I didn't make up that the definition is as such. Go find a dictionary that has not been revised to "match" the way people tend to use the word lately. ( such as a dictionary made 10 years ago ) You will find that is the actual definition.

Respect is a two way street. Those deserving of respect also need to give it and treat the people "beneath" them well. I do not give respect to people who are abusive to everyone around them.

You state that people who write articles are trying to bring benefit into the world, but that is really wishful thinking. If you look clearly at the motivations of the people crafting articles and the actual quality of the content they have created, you will find that the motivations are quite a bit less wonderful. The most common motivation is to get attention.

I am unsure why I should be offended if you state that people attending church on a regular basis tend to be arrogant and narrow minded. I should say that is simply a true statement. If people are offended by that then fuck them. If you stated "People who attend church are a bunch of dumb hicks" then that would be offensive. You didn't state it that way. You just made a rather defensible observation; a controversial one obviously, but I think it has weight.

I don't even follow your second example statement. It doesn't make sense.

You still haven't responded to the actual point of the observation heard in church. You seem to be deliberately ignoring the idea.

krapp
There are no qualifications for either upvotes or downvotes, as far as I'm aware. Pg has said that any reason up to and including mere disagreement is valid[0], and this seems to have been accepted in general, although many people here also disagree with it in practice[1].

There's really nothing to do but accept it. Asking for clarifications about downvotes, or complaining about them, will only lead to more of the same, and the staff finds meta discussions about site policy to be tedious and tends to kill them.

On the other hand, karma is practically useless so I wouldn't worry too much about losing it.

[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3760275

rilita
It's not useless because until you hit a certain karma value you cannot downvote. I encounter obnoxious people and attempt to respond reasonably to them; they downvote every single post I make but I obviously cannot do the same to the comments they make that are bad for the community. As a result those people gain karma for trashing whatever I say and no one else gets involved because they do not want to get involved in downvotes imo.