1) commenting on downvotes often gets downvotes (not that it should)
Yeah, I'm aware of that. But I'm willing to burn a few karma points to call this behavior out. It's really bizarre.
When I first discovered HN, I was really pleased that the tone of the discussion threads was, unlike just about every other place on the net, really civil. And it didn't even seem so much that it was the result of the moderators or the downvoters policing the tone, although that no doubt helped some. Instead, it simply seemed to be a byproduct of who the people were who posted here. They seemed to be cerebral people who could have spirited disagreements with someone, but stick to arguments based on reason and logic, without resorting to name-calling or personal attacks, as is common in so many other places. I really dug it.
And I have to say, the tone here is still pretty civil. But there seems to be a nasty passive-aggressive undercurrent that's developed in the last year or two where stories get quickly flagged into oblivion, and even the most innocuous comments, like mine above, get hammered with downvotes for no apparent reason. I again acknowledge that the Edit I added is a reason that some choose to downvote, but the original part, can someone offer a theory as to why that would attract downvotes?
If I had to guess, other than complete randomness, it would be that a few downvoters didn't recognize the connection to the original topic; i.e. they didn't recognize that graf was journo jargon like lede is.
Yeah, I'm aware of that. But I'm willing to burn a few karma points to call this behavior out. It's really bizarre.
When I first discovered HN, I was really pleased that the tone of the discussion threads was, unlike just about every other place on the net, really civil. And it didn't even seem so much that it was the result of the moderators or the downvoters policing the tone, although that no doubt helped some. Instead, it simply seemed to be a byproduct of who the people were who posted here. They seemed to be cerebral people who could have spirited disagreements with someone, but stick to arguments based on reason and logic, without resorting to name-calling or personal attacks, as is common in so many other places. I really dug it.
And I have to say, the tone here is still pretty civil. But there seems to be a nasty passive-aggressive undercurrent that's developed in the last year or two where stories get quickly flagged into oblivion, and even the most innocuous comments, like mine above, get hammered with downvotes for no apparent reason. I again acknowledge that the Edit I added is a reason that some choose to downvote, but the original part, can someone offer a theory as to why that would attract downvotes?