[Grishnakh]

>Given that your comment is well constructed, you seem to be dismissed simply for not having the same point of view.

That's standard operating procedure around here.

What's really bad is that, unlike Reddit where anyone has the ability to down-mod, on here only people with high karma (over 1000) can down-mod, yet in my experience you're much more likely to be down-modded to oblivion here for having an unpopular viewpoint, whereas on Reddit you'll get both down-mods and up-mods and generally stay neutral.

So if you think about it, the set-up here reinforces the "hive-mind" dynamic: because only high-karma people have down-mod ability, people who are popular get modded up more, and down-mod people they disagree with, and this creates a feedback loop which silences any unpopular or dissenting opinions. Over on Reddit, even though people complain a lot about a hive-mind mentality, anyone can create an account there in seconds and then has the same up-mod and down-mod ability as anyone else, as long as they don't get restricted or banned by moderators, so it's far more democratic. (And if they do get banned, they can just create another account in 10 seconds...)

[yoha]

I do not feel like the hivemind effect is stronger on Hacker News than on e.g. /r/programming, and definitely lower than on default subreddits.

My main gripe about Reddit is the sheer amount of low-value comments, with repeated remarks, jokes and puns trumping constructed and sourced arguments. It is obviously hard to find a good compromise.

[Grishnakh]

Well one thing you have to remember about Reddit is that every subreddit is basically a totally different forum, with different moderators, different rules to an extent, and a totally different crowd. The people who hang out on /r/Linux are not likely to be the same people who hang out on /r/Windows for instance, and there's plenty of subreddits that don't cater to tech crowds much at all. So what gets modded up or down will vary wildly from subreddit to subreddit.

But I definitely do feel the hivemind effect is greater here, at least in my personal experience (however I do not frequent /r/programming so I can't speak for that subreddit specifically). I constantly see posts down-modded here for no good reason, other than that someone doesn't like them because they go against the viewpoint of the elites here. I feel this is inevitable where you have a system where some people are "more equal" than others, as it is here. It might seem better in one way, with fewer "low-value comments" and jokes and memes and such, but it also turns into an echo chamber with misfits forced out.

[DanBC]

You say that not everybody can downvote, butyou forget to mention that nearly everyone can upvote.

A downvoted post needs someone to downvote it, and then for nobody else to upvote it.

People shouldn't downvote for disagreement, but they do. It's probably more important to upvote grey posts than complain about downvoting.