[LionessLover]

Which is wrong. As is the use of "absolutely" - to show that you have the universe-opinion. What hubris. And it does not matter that some guy "himself" posted some opinion either. Right were you link to there are different opinions from other people that show more thought was put into them. The "pg" comment actually is the only one for your argument, all others are against!

[jholman]

pg wrote the site, pg is one of the owners of the site, pg was the only admin at the time that that comment was written. Admins/maintainers (dang) since then haven't disagreed. That makes it site policy, doesn't it?

When you come to a new site, it's usually considered civil to learn the rules of that site, although of course I cannot force you to do so. For example, assuming that reddit rules apply on HN is kinda silly. Relatedly, you might be interested to note that there are dozens of HN old-timers that will automatically downvote (nearly) any comment that contains a "downvote me if you want" or a "don't just downvote me if you disagree" or "these downvotes are BS" or something.

You're right, though, that not all users agree. And hopefully you learn from this comment that it's okay, on HN, to downvote me if you disagree, even if you think I contributed to the conversation.

PS: welcome to HN.

[LionessLover]

> pg wrote the site

What does ownership have to do with it?

That does not make him more right than any other human being.

Ownership means one can impose ones will, it does not mean you are omniscient.

[coldtea]

>That does not make him more right than any other human being.

No, just the only relevant person to say what is welcome and allowed in HIS social bookmarking forum and what's not.

>Ownership means one can impose ones will, it does not mean you are omniscient.

"House rules" are not meant to be perfect or agreeable to all -- they are just meant to be whatever those running and owing the house decide.

[LionessLover]

> pg wrote the site

What does ownership have to do with it, you fucking moron?

That does not make him more right than any other human being. Ownership means one can impose ones will, it does not mean you are omniscient.

[coldtea]

>What does ownership have to do with it, you fucking moron?

I'd say "you fucking moron" besides rude, is grounds for killing your account.

As to the question, rules on any property, including a website, are usually imposed by the owner.

That's what "ownership" has to do with it.

There are moderators, and comment and submission rules in places. Maybe you conflated HN with some kind of self-governing collective?

>That does not make him more right than any other human being. Ownership means one can impose ones will, it does not mean you are omniscient.

You wrote that again and I already answered. Nobody cares about PG being omniscient. He can impose ANY arbitrary will (right or wrong), because it's his site. He can even close it if he gets bored with it. Whether you or I find any particular rule "right" is inconsequential, as we're guests here, not even customers.

[Karunamon]

Well given that it's PG's site, I'd say his opinion is the only one that matters.

Besides, votes are used for agreement more than for any other purpose, and given that there's no way to force people to not do this, let's just dispense with the fiction that they can ever mean anything else. "Please no downvote" is just noise.

[astazangasta]

Horsehit - mass opinion obviously matters a lot more on this subject, since there is no way to enforce our arbitrary kowtowing to Paul Graham's wisdom. What is he going to do, yell at us for down voting incorrectly?

This is our website. Maybe pg 'made' it, but we use it. If most of us disagree that is what will (and should in my opinion) happen.

[tlrobinson]

Hacker News has remained a relatively civil place for far longer than most online forums largely because of the policies pg and other admins have put in place.

[astazangasta]

And the self-policing of its users is the force that makes that happen, not the opinion of the admins.

[coldtea]

>What is he going to do, yell at us for down voting incorrectly

He can always close down the side.

Besides, it's not about "what is he going to do" -- it's about what people coming here should respect.

[astazangasta]

He could, but it's unlikely he will close the site over improper downvoting behavior (which is rampant, but unimportant). And what I think people here should (and do) respect is the general spirit of civility; we respect Paul Graham's wishes because he asked for civility, not vice-versa. If Paul Graham asked us to be pointlessly cruel, we would not respect that (or we would be congregating elsewhere).

Therefore, what matters most in practice is the mass opinion of users of the site - what do we think is most useful and respectful in daily usage (following Paul Graham's lead to be respectful because we can all agree that this is a good idea).