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HN isn't exactly the most positive of places sometimes, in the comments, and I've been downvoted for comments that don't make sense to be downvoted unless you h

HN isn't exactly the most positive of places sometimes, in the comments, and I've been downvoted for comments that don't make sense to be downvoted unless you had something against me as a poster (like my recent 0 voted post about a System76 laptop). I don't care about downvotes, I don't care about my vote numbers at all (other than being able to report posts and not be "green"), but it's weird that the HN community thinks it's above such petty "censorship", or whatever you want to call it, when they constantly downvote topics that aren't in keeping with the general conservative and commercial/capitalistic slant that goes on here. I wish the political or murky topics could be separated from the clearly technical ones, I would ignore the former as much as possible. I have no idea if this article was good or bad, mind you, but there is a point to "HN is toxic": HN'ers preach "free speech" then downvote/flag anything they don't like, so the community is "talking out of both sides of it's mouth", which is pretty toxic.

warent 6y ago
I agree with you that sometimes downvoting can come across as pretty irrational/emotional, and like any community HN has its echo chamber qualities. However in my time here I'd say that's the exception, not the rule. The majority is actually pretty fair. Side note, if you want my 2 cents, I'd guess the reason why your comment on the System76 laptop was downvoted is because you said "X is just better than Y" with minimal evidence and you didn't present it as an opinion. If your comment said something like "My opinion is..." or "Anecdotally" I think you likely would have gotten voted up instead. Don't take it personally, the community here tends to be very focused on hard evidence or being clear about an opinion being that.
drchopchop 6y ago
Well, the article is linked a few threads below, you can be the judge yourself. The whole concept of up/downvoting is based on having some kind of an opinion on a topic, which doesn't necessarily equate to hard censorship.
AnimalMuppet 6y ago
HN is, not the most positive, but is certainly among the upper echelon of the most reasonable of online places. I admit that it's been more negative lately (Covid and the election getting on peoples' nerves, I suspect), but I still don't know of anyplace better. (I know of plenty that are worse, though...)

warent 6y ago

I agree with you that sometimes downvoting can come across as pretty irrational/emotional, and like any community HN has its echo chamber qualities. However in my time here I'd say that's the exception, not the rule. The majority is actually pretty fair. Side note, if you want my 2 cents, I'd guess the reason why your comment on the System76 laptop was downvoted is because you said "X is just better than Y" with minimal evidence and you didn't present it as an opinion. If your comment said something like "My opinion is..." or "Anecdotally" I think you likely would have gotten voted up instead. Don't take it personally, the community here tends to be very focused on hard evidence or being clear about an opinion being that.

drchopchop 6y ago

Well, the article is linked a few threads below, you can be the judge yourself. The whole concept of up/downvoting is based on having some kind of an opinion on a topic, which doesn't necessarily equate to hard censorship.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago

HN is, not the most positive, but is certainly among the upper echelon of the most reasonable of online places. I admit that it's been more negative lately (Covid and the election getting on peoples' nerves, I suspect), but I still don't know of anyplace better. (I know of plenty that are worse, though...)