As suggested above, if you believe there's abuse going on, please contact the mods via the Contact link below.
Comments do sometimes attract downvotes from people who disagree, but far more often from what I've observed is that HN members strongly value civil and constructive comments, and will tend to downvote comments they feel don't meet those standards. They'll also downvote comments that go against the guidelines, which is likely your last comment is receiving downvotes.
Speculating as to why your comment was downvoted is of course, just speculation: some might wonder what the purpose of your comment is. It reads somewhat critical of 'tptacek's Twitter feed, which is not the topic of discussion. So it appears to be needlessly negative of an arguably personal nature for something that's off-topic. While that may not have been your intent, viewed in that light, it's not surprising that it may have attracted some downvotes.
Like I said, it's speculation. I have no special insight into the minds of those who downvoted. In my experience, it does little good to dwell on it other than to use it as motivation to write better comments.
Again, if you think there's actual abuse going on, do contact the mods. They're very responsive and I'm confident they'll look into it for you.
There's a minimum karma requirement to be able to downvote. I don't remember exactly what the threshold is: it's either 200 or 500, I believe. See this thread:
Thanks grzm. But I've seen a bunch of posts where people can't downvote after 500...but some people can.
I'm not interested in down voting anyone.
Edit: I've gone down 16 pts in the last hour. I know part of this is me being an ass initially, but clearly people w/ downvote ability are piling on...
Edit2: Yes, Me being an ass and idiot. Here'e the post that ended at 400
Can you provide links to the comments where people are having problems downvoting if they have 501 karma or more?
There is no other criteria for downvoting that I know of. When I achieved the threshold, the downvote button appeared. I didn't have to apply for anything, no one emailed me and said "We think you're swell! You get to downvote!"
I get the impression that you think there's some sort of secret down voting group. I haven't seen any evidence of that, either in behavior, or mentioned in comments.
It's fine if you don't want to downvote. There's no requirement to do so, and many people don't.
Thanks for the link. As I said, I believe you get downvote once you have 501 karma, not the 400 mentioned in that thread. (As an aside, that thread also notes that submissions, unlike comments, don't receive downvotes, only flags.)
I've also noticed that you have been getting additional downvotes, and that bothers me because I want people to be able to have a positive, constructive experience on HN. I think what you're perceiving as piling on is a reflection of how strongly the community values good comments, not organized behavior. If you find that a comment of yours is being downvoted, within the first two hours of posting you can edit the comment (or delete it entirely if it has no responses). This may prevent further downvoting.
A lot of your comments have been on political or contentious topics. Those are particularly difficult considering how passionate and strongly people feel about them. I'm sure that's one of the reasons you want to participate in them, because you likewise feel strongly. And that in and of itself is good. That said, while there are some political discussion on HN (and indeed more recently reflecting current events), HN isn't primarily for political debate. I suggest taking a break from those discussions and spend some time in other threads to get used to the HN community and build up karma, taking extra care in crafting what you write. I believe you can lose enough karma (once your karma is significantly negative) to the point where your comments are hidden from most members.
I hope this is constructive. If you've got further questions, feel free to ask me, or contact the mods at hn@ycombinator.com. In my experience they respond pretty quickly.
grzm, Thanks. I feel like there is brigading going on. But I was wrong to call out a user. And obviously if people want to down vote that's their right.
I didn't delete it because if I make a mistake I own it. When I realized calling out another user was probably not right it was too late.
If you read through my comments you'll see that although I sometimes post on controversial topics, I'm not a troll.
Again, thanks for jumping in here.
Edit: but know, every time I reply to you I get down voted.
Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
As suggested above, if you believe there's abuse going on, please contact the mods via the Contact link below.
Comments do sometimes attract downvotes from people who disagree, but far more often from what I've observed is that HN members strongly value civil and constructive comments, and will tend to downvote comments they feel don't meet those standards. They'll also downvote comments that go against the guidelines, which is likely your last comment is receiving downvotes.
Speculating as to why your comment was downvoted is of course, just speculation: some might wonder what the purpose of your comment is. It reads somewhat critical of 'tptacek's Twitter feed, which is not the topic of discussion. So it appears to be needlessly negative of an arguably personal nature for something that's off-topic. While that may not have been your intent, viewed in that light, it's not surprising that it may have attracted some downvotes.
Like I said, it's speculation. I have no special insight into the minds of those who downvoted. In my experience, it does little good to dwell on it other than to use it as motivation to write better comments.
Again, if you think there's actual abuse going on, do contact the mods. They're very responsive and I'm confident they'll look into it for you.