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My bet is on Google employees. I get a good dozen or so downvotes from them when I post something negative about Google. Usually it happens in a short period of

My bet is on Google employees. I get a good dozen or so downvotes from them when I post something negative about Google. Usually it happens in a short period of time, as if someone gave them marching orders. I have also noticed that Googlers aren't fans of saying "Disclaimer: I work for Google" but go straight into praising Google's Product A and Feature B as if they had no bias. "Google is good and Microsoft is evil" is getting a little tiring and IMO is no longer true. Google will do almost anything for a quick buck: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/13/google-kenyan-rival-mocality-database http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/13/google-keny... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904787404576528332418595052.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190478740457652... http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/05/technology/google_verizon_net_neutrality_rules/index.htm http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/05/technology/google_verizon_ne... Just imagine what may hide in their black box algorithms as Google claims fairness an unbiased results.

11hour 13y ago
Why was Microsoft evil? Because back in the day they hired only the best and brightest nerds and geeks. They had the same type of 'IQ test' interviews that Google does now. A company needs some code janitors and code monkeys, and others, to go along with the top coders. Google are an "us vs them" company now not a "great products" company and that's why they do these things like downvoting rings that lack integrity. That's just the tip of the iceberg, and it's going to get a lot worse.
- rbanffy 13y ago
  > Why was Microsoft evil? Because back in the day they hired only the best and brightest nerds and geeks. No. Because they abused a monopoly position hurting competition, therefore artificially inflating prices and preventing the kind of progress we see now in non-PC segments that are not suffocated by them. Also, for extorting every Android handset maker with a bogus (and secret) list of patents.
  - saurik 13y ago
    Google has a monopoly on search in the US due to some early advances (letting them kick Yahoo, altavista, and similar early competitors to the corner) that now seems to mostly be maintained by both having sequestered some content by unfair licensing discrimination (such as YouTube in this example) and generally by "we have more of the web cached and indexed than anyone else" (a race they have a many years head start on, and barring some disruptive advance is probably going to be true for a long while). They are now using the money they make advertising on that search system (if you check their Q10 they don't actually get much money from third party adsense websites: first party inventory dominates) in order to build large numbers of "engh, good enough but not great" services that are impossible to compete against because Google just gives them away for free or even operates them at a loss... it really isn't that different. They are even now starting to "bundle" things together with their search platform (G+) to directly leverage their position to propel other products. This is especially clear as what really screwed Microsoft was trying to make certain everyone had access to a web browser that could itself be used as an application platform rather than having to pay license fees to a company (Netscape, if this isn't clear) that had such a large web usage marketshare that they were able to run roughshod over the W3 (to the point where their mailing list sometimes described Microsoft as the open hero that will save them; Microsoft even was providing their DTDs for public review, which impressed the crowd). Netscape used this position to make up features we still hate like presentation-oriented markup, to hold back the original CSS attempts by being unwilling to implement them, and to add tons of proprietary features to their JavaScript engine that they considered a killer feature that others had to bug-for-bug emulate. I mean: I look at the situation and find it surprising that anyone wouldn't think it isn't the exact same story playing out a second (arguably, even a third) time ("you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villian", etc.).
    - angersock 13y ago
      Do you have any links furthering your explanation about Netscape? Typically the story is told much, much differently, and your allegations pique my interest here very much.
      - 13y ago
- untog 13y ago
  Would love to see some evidence that backs any part of that up. I'll wait. If Google has widespread rings of employees dedicated to flagging anti-Google stories on Hacker News, do you honestly think that not one single person would have exposed it by now? That all people involved- including ex employees, most likely- would never talk?
  - CloudNine 13y ago
    The more likely explanation is that Google fans and Microsoft haters are doign the flagging. Even the other story about Microsoft's response is getting flagged and is far down the front page for its points. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5715889 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5715889 What's your explanation for this constant flagging of Microsoft related stories or anti-Google ones? Read through this thread for examples for many more stories getting flagged off the front page. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5716010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5716010 HN rankings graph showing abnormal and sudden dips. http://hnrankings.info/5715168/ http://hnrankings.info/5715168/ HN rankings graph showing low rank for a long time inspite of a lot of upvotes. http://hnrankings.info/5715889/ http://hnrankings.info/5715889/
    - ok_craig 13y ago
      Maybe people who are actually just average HN users don't find those stories to really be worth reading as much as other stories. Occam's razor, you know. Not everything is a conspiracy.
      - recoiledsnake 13y ago
        Note that the complaint is not about lack of upvotes, it's about people going out of their way to use their flagging powers which is meant only for spam links.
        ok_craig 13y ago
        How do you tell if something's flagged?
- aptwebapps 13y ago
  Don't make me relieve my callow youth and go on about the evils of 'M$'. ;) The ire directed at Microsoft back in the day was due to their ruthless business practices and their attack on Linux. Whether employees of theirs ever indulged in things like astroturfing was irrelevant because their official actions were so upsetting.
rbanffy 13y ago
> My bet is on Google employees. So, either your post is considered bad, deserving downvotes, or there is a conspiracy. I'd go for the simple explanation.
- OGinparadise 13y ago
  So, either your post is considered bad, deserving downvotes, or there is a conspiracy. I'd go for the simple explanation. Me too. Considering the flagging of bad-for-Google stories it makes sense. That's what you meant for the "simple explanation" right?
  - rbanffy 13y ago
    I'd go with "flagging bad comments" or "flagging bad stories". I liked the Ars one better http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/05/google-tells-microsoft-to-cease-and-desist-its-ad-free-youtube-app/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/05/google-tells-microsof...
  - kumarm 13y ago
    Looking at your posts, it appears your posts has more hate than reason when it comes to Google. FYI: I don't work for Google. So its not just google employees that disagree with you.
    - OGinparadise 13y ago
      Looking at your posts, it appears your posts has more hate than reason when it comes to Google. That's an opinion, but I no longer fall for Google's kool aid...and yes, there's some boomerang from having drunk it earlier on. FYI: I don't work for Google. So its not just google employees that disagree with you. The good thing is that I am not looking to get noticed, get funded or being hired here so I truly say what's in my mind. I am 100% sure that many [insert corp name here] employees disagree with me on virtually every topic.
      - psbp 13y ago
blhack 13y ago
>I dislike large corporations of all stripes (especially smooth talking ones) that are trying to take over the web for their own financial good. From you profile. You don't think that maybe this bias is showing through in some of your comments?
- OGinparadise 13y ago
  So what? People have biases, I never claimed to be unbiased and we're just sharing our opinions. I do not get paid by anyone for what I say. What I said about Google is heretic to some, only because they have this notion of an angelic Google. They'd believe it for Apple, most other companies and especially for Facebook and Microsoft. Anyway, bed time is almost here.
  - burntsushi 13y ago
    > So what? Unless I missed something, your OP was one big complaint about biases.
    - pfortuny 13y ago
      Not bias: abuse of power which is quite a different thing. On HN opinions only have interest, votes have power.
      - burntsushi 13y ago
        Abuse? Votes are influenced by bias. Abuse only happens when there is a large coordinated effort to snuff something out.
        pfortuny 13y ago
        No: you abuse a vote when you vote not led by reason but by opinion. Downvotes are not for differences of opinion but for lack of interest, etc... Downvoting affects directly the visibility of a message and this should not be based on opinion.
brendano 13y ago
<i> I get a good dozen or so downvotes from them when I post something negative about Google. Usually it happens in a short period of time, as if someone gave them marching orders</i> There are thousands of employees at Google. Maybe there are just are a lot of people reading HN during the day.
ok_craig 13y ago
If people comment and don't say they're Google employees, how do you know they're Google employees?
mcintyre1994 13y ago
Are Bing's ranking algorithms open source then? Or are they too just a black box? This is ridiculous - I'm a big fan of open source but do you think it's realistic that somebody can make their ranking algorithm open source and stay relevant? There's people that would abuse it ridiculously.
fuck_google 13y ago
Googlers and Google fanboys are still living in denial. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model
belorn 13y ago
Comments sometimes get downvoted because they are off-topic (fair regarding guidelines? I do not know). For instance, this is a meta discussion about HN being biased towards one company or an other, and has nothing to do with an Microsoft developed app being declared to be in violating with YouTube’s API and Terms of Service.

11hour 13y ago

Why was Microsoft evil? Because back in the day they hired only the best and brightest nerds and geeks. They had the same type of 'IQ test' interviews that Google does now. A company needs some code janitors and code monkeys, and others, to go along with the top coders. Google are an "us vs them" company now not a "great products" company and that's why they do these things like downvoting rings that lack integrity. That's just the tip of the iceberg, and it's going to get a lot worse.

rbanffy 13y ago
> Why was Microsoft evil? Because back in the day they hired only the best and brightest nerds and geeks. No. Because they abused a monopoly position hurting competition, therefore artificially inflating prices and preventing the kind of progress we see now in non-PC segments that are not suffocated by them. Also, for extorting every Android handset maker with a bogus (and secret) list of patents.
- saurik 13y ago
  Google has a monopoly on search in the US due to some early advances (letting them kick Yahoo, altavista, and similar early competitors to the corner) that now seems to mostly be maintained by both having sequestered some content by unfair licensing discrimination (such as YouTube in this example) and generally by "we have more of the web cached and indexed than anyone else" (a race they have a many years head start on, and barring some disruptive advance is probably going to be true for a long while). They are now using the money they make advertising on that search system (if you check their Q10 they don't actually get much money from third party adsense websites: first party inventory dominates) in order to build large numbers of "engh, good enough but not great" services that are impossible to compete against because Google just gives them away for free or even operates them at a loss... it really isn't that different. They are even now starting to "bundle" things together with their search platform (G+) to directly leverage their position to propel other products. This is especially clear as what really screwed Microsoft was trying to make certain everyone had access to a web browser that could itself be used as an application platform rather than having to pay license fees to a company (Netscape, if this isn't clear) that had such a large web usage marketshare that they were able to run roughshod over the W3 (to the point where their mailing list sometimes described Microsoft as the open hero that will save them; Microsoft even was providing their DTDs for public review, which impressed the crowd). Netscape used this position to make up features we still hate like presentation-oriented markup, to hold back the original CSS attempts by being unwilling to implement them, and to add tons of proprietary features to their JavaScript engine that they considered a killer feature that others had to bug-for-bug emulate. I mean: I look at the situation and find it surprising that anyone wouldn't think it isn't the exact same story playing out a second (arguably, even a third) time ("you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villian", etc.).
  - angersock 13y ago
    Do you have any links furthering your explanation about Netscape? Typically the story is told much, much differently, and your allegations pique my interest here very much.
    - 13y ago
untog 13y ago
Would love to see some evidence that backs any part of that up. I'll wait. If Google has widespread rings of employees dedicated to flagging anti-Google stories on Hacker News, do you honestly think that not one single person would have exposed it by now? That all people involved- including ex employees, most likely- would never talk?
- CloudNine 13y ago
  The more likely explanation is that Google fans and Microsoft haters are doign the flagging. Even the other story about Microsoft's response is getting flagged and is far down the front page for its points. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5715889 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5715889 What's your explanation for this constant flagging of Microsoft related stories or anti-Google ones? Read through this thread for examples for many more stories getting flagged off the front page. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5716010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5716010 HN rankings graph showing abnormal and sudden dips. http://hnrankings.info/5715168/ http://hnrankings.info/5715168/ HN rankings graph showing low rank for a long time inspite of a lot of upvotes. http://hnrankings.info/5715889/ http://hnrankings.info/5715889/
  - ok_craig 13y ago
    Maybe people who are actually just average HN users don't find those stories to really be worth reading as much as other stories. Occam's razor, you know. Not everything is a conspiracy.
    - recoiledsnake 13y ago
      Note that the complaint is not about lack of upvotes, it's about people going out of their way to use their flagging powers which is meant only for spam links.
      - ok_craig 13y ago
        How do you tell if something's flagged?
aptwebapps 13y ago
Don't make me relieve my callow youth and go on about the evils of 'M$'. ;) The ire directed at Microsoft back in the day was due to their ruthless business practices and their attack on Linux. Whether employees of theirs ever indulged in things like astroturfing was irrelevant because their official actions were so upsetting.

rbanffy 13y ago

> My bet is on Google employees. So, either your post is considered bad, deserving downvotes, or there is a conspiracy. I'd go for the simple explanation.

OGinparadise 13y ago
So, either your post is considered bad, deserving downvotes, or there is a conspiracy. I'd go for the simple explanation. Me too. Considering the flagging of bad-for-Google stories it makes sense. That's what you meant for the "simple explanation" right?
- rbanffy 13y ago
  I'd go with "flagging bad comments" or "flagging bad stories". I liked the Ars one better http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/05/google-tells-microsoft-to-cease-and-desist-its-ad-free-youtube-app/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/05/google-tells-microsof...
- kumarm 13y ago
  Looking at your posts, it appears your posts has more hate than reason when it comes to Google. FYI: I don't work for Google. So its not just google employees that disagree with you.
  - OGinparadise 13y ago
    Looking at your posts, it appears your posts has more hate than reason when it comes to Google. That's an opinion, but I no longer fall for Google's kool aid...and yes, there's some boomerang from having drunk it earlier on. FYI: I don't work for Google. So its not just google employees that disagree with you. The good thing is that I am not looking to get noticed, get funded or being hired here so I truly say what's in my mind. I am 100% sure that many [insert corp name here] employees disagree with me on virtually every topic.
    - psbp 13y ago

blhack 13y ago

>I dislike large corporations of all stripes (especially smooth talking ones) that are trying to take over the web for their own financial good. From you profile. You don't think that maybe this bias is showing through in some of your comments?

OGinparadise 13y ago
So what? People have biases, I never claimed to be unbiased and we're just sharing our opinions. I do not get paid by anyone for what I say. What I said about Google is heretic to some, only because they have this notion of an angelic Google. They'd believe it for Apple, most other companies and especially for Facebook and Microsoft. Anyway, bed time is almost here.
- burntsushi 13y ago
  > So what? Unless I missed something, your OP was one big complaint about biases.
  - pfortuny 13y ago
    Not bias: abuse of power which is quite a different thing. On HN opinions only have interest, votes have power.
    - burntsushi 13y ago
      Abuse? Votes are influenced by bias. Abuse only happens when there is a large coordinated effort to snuff something out.
      - pfortuny 13y ago
        No: you abuse a vote when you vote not led by reason but by opinion. Downvotes are not for differences of opinion but for lack of interest, etc... Downvoting affects directly the visibility of a message and this should not be based on opinion.

brendano 13y ago

<i> I get a good dozen or so downvotes from them when I post something negative about Google. Usually it happens in a short period of time, as if someone gave them marching orders</i> There are thousands of employees at Google. Maybe there are just are a lot of people reading HN during the day.

ok_craig 13y ago

If people comment and don't say they're Google employees, how do you know they're Google employees?

mcintyre1994 13y ago

Are Bing's ranking algorithms open source then? Or are they too just a black box? This is ridiculous - I'm a big fan of open source but do you think it's realistic that somebody can make their ranking algorithm open source and stay relevant? There's people that would abuse it ridiculously.

fuck_google 13y ago

Googlers and Google fanboys are still living in denial. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model

belorn 13y ago

Comments sometimes get downvoted because they are off-topic (fair regarding guidelines? I do not know). For instance, this is a meta discussion about HN being biased towards one company or an other, and has nothing to do with an Microsoft developed app being declared to be in violating with YouTube’s API and Terms of Service.