Comment by xboxnolifes

Comment by xboxnolifes 2 days ago

I disagree. People will frequently say that downvoting is not for disagreeing, but in every controversial thread dissenting opinions are quickly downvoted and frequently flagged. Some recover, but many die or end up pushed down into obscurity.

Mildly controversial opinions sometimes survive and get discussion, but anything past that rarely get a reply and just get downvoted and flagged into oblivion. This isn't exactly a slight against HN, as this happens basically everywhere past a tiny userbase community. But I don't think it's particularly right to put HN on a pedestal for its ability to handle controversy.

infecto 2 days ago

I would also argue that shutting certain posts down early is what helps it thrive. Maybe you lose some value of topic but you gain the ability to discuss other things in depth. You also prevent pollution of discourse.

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[removed] 2 days ago

[deleted]

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otterley 2 days ago

There are over 1,200 comments on this controversial story alone, with plenty of debate within: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43517833

What more evidence do you need that spirited disagreement is alive and well here?

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dooglius 2 days ago

That seems like a pretty mild controversy to me. How many people could even say whether their water has added fluoride?

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- otterley 2 days ago
  
  What kind of evidence would satisfy you, then?
  
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  dooglius 2 days ago
  
  I have `showdead` enabled. It should not be the case that I find flagged posts that are good -- that are well written, don't break rules, etc -- but are flagged (presumably) due to expressing a dissenting view.
  
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dang 2 days ago

Downvoting for disagreement has always been fine on HN. People sometimes assume otherwise because they're implicitly porting the rules from a larger site, but that's a mistake.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314

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Karrot_Kream a day ago

It has but I'm not sure this works at the scale HN operates at now. When the community was smaller, the band of opinion was narrower, so the downvote worked better. Now that the community is large I'm not sure if this scales well. Just a thought I've had over the last few years.

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- boredhedgehog a day ago
  
  Wouldn't that only be true if the vote thresholds are absolute? If the impact of a vote is adjusted based on voters present, it should scale.
  
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Suppafly 2 days ago

> People will frequently say that downvoting is not for disagreeing

Those people are wrong.

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Sohcahtoa82 2 days ago

Downvoting pushes peoples comments down and greys them out, effectively silencing them. It creates echo chambers.
I reserve my downvotes for when arguments are made in bad faith, rely on logical fallacies, or present know-false information as an argument.
If someone presents an argument on something I disagree with, but it's made in good faith and is well-structured, it deserves an upvote, even if I still disagree afterwards.

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- Suppafly 4 hours ago
  
  >Downvoting pushes peoples comments down and greys them out
  I don't see how that's a problem. People that agree with them can upvote them and ungrey them out and push them back up.
  
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- otterley 2 days ago
  
  Your very comment is now downvoted but not silenced. We all see it, as we do every grey comment, as long as one works their way down the comments page. Not every comment is going to be agreed with and rise above the fold, and that’s ok.
  
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  MrMcCall a day ago
  
  So you understand how echo chambers are created and are fine with it?
  The problem is that there is no one with power here that can come to the "little guy's" defence. There is no will around here for that kind of support, because the only people hired to wield such power are of like mind. DJT doesn't hire democrats, and this is no different.
  Look at this comment section, and tell me this isn't an echo chamber.
  
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lordfrito 2 days ago

>> Disagreement is alive and well on HN.

> I disagree.

Head explodes

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xboxnolifes 2 days ago

I had a whole paragraph that I removed that was to preempt this reply, but I thought it wasn't needed.

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