[Raphmedia]

I looked through your comment history. You claim got me curious.

Most of your downvoted comments (usually one liners) have comments under them (usually paragraphs) disagreeing with you and explaining why.

Meanwhile, your downvoted comments that have no explanation added are simply out of place for the HN community. Swear words, short controversial statements, very political messages, etc.

Do you truly believe this comment was downvoted because of a cabal and not because of its content?: "I’m tired of trashy Chinese tastes gaining so much influence in the world." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25527391

[xwdv]

That example is not even one of my most downvoted comments, it actually had upvotes before sliding to -1 downvotes over all. The op you are replying to has more downvotes than that, sitting at -2. Why?

Don’t forget the fact I used to have close to 1000 karma on HN. So clearly something changed at some point and my decline in popularity picked up momentum. I really wish I could see data on my upvotes and downvotes history.

When you know you’re going to be downvoted regardless of what you post, it’s easy for your writing to take on a bitter and cynical tone. That said, most of my comments aren’t even like that and still get inexplicable downvotes.

[Raphmedia]

> When you know you’re going to be downvoted regardless of what you post, it’s easy for your writing to take on a bitter and cynical tone. That said, most of my comments aren’t even like that and still get inexplicable downvotes.

I believe that you hit the nail on the head there. If your reaction to feedback from your peers is to turn bitter you are creating a vicious circle.

When I get a downvote, I analyze my comment and try to detect the mistake or social faux pas I commited. For example, most *chan or Reddit lingo is frowned upon so I avoid them.

This is an account I created 4 months ago because my previous account was named after a domain I no longer own. I am already at 811 karma. My previous account, created in 2013, had 5930 karma with long periods of inactivity. Karma is meaningless if you do not use it as a metric to detect how your peers perceive you. It's points without a scoreboard and no one is keeping track.

This does not mean I bend backward and follow the opinions of others. I do stand by my comments that are downvoted and would repeat them verbatim if the same conversation arise. But that's an exception and it's usually about controversial topics.

Remember that the words you write are going to be read by someone (or what's the point?). So make sure you are either helpful to other users or that you bring the discussion forward. Otherwise you are simply wasting someone's time and they will quickly click on the downward triangle.

This is not an attack, I am genuinely trying to help you get out of that catch-22.

[loceng]

That type of commentary is definitely crude and distasteful, ignorant at least - however OP's points still stands. Downvotes are a weapon of oppression, not only to readers but it also allows others to easily dismiss something - to turn an impulse or urge into a simple downvote click for a hit of dopamine, so arguably it's suppressing and perhaps placating others who feel strong enough emotion where they feel the need to act - but instead of a qualitative response so we can see if their criticism is critical, they get to act with a click.

[lightgreen]

Oppression is a bit strong word, I'd say downvotes promote groupthink.

People with opposing worldviews simply stop commenting after receiving downvotes (and especially when banned from commenting for some time because of downvoting). Currently HN is very progressive, although there is a lot of people with conservative views, who simply don't comment.

It could the the opposite: conservative majority with quiet progressives. It would be equally bad.

[loceng]

Yes, oppression is too strong of a word to use - the feeling I had would have been better described to state that suppression of ideas is on the spectrum towards oppression, a sign that that's not the best direction to go in, the better direction to lead towards is closer to freedom, and expression vs. suppression.

[dragonwriter]

> Currently HN is very progressive, although there is a lot of people with conservative views, who simply don't comment.

Currently, HN has a robust (though definitely skewed in ways one would expect of a forum dominated by people who are, if not always currently well-off, in possession of excellent economic prospects in first-world economies) mix of views, though the meme about conservatives being suppressed in tech is well-represented among HN’s conservatives, so we see lots of HN conservatives commenting about how HN conservatives don't comment.

Also, we see lots of them commenting about other things, too.

(In fact, others have argued—though I think this is also, but only equally, wrong—that the dominant viewpoint on HN is right-libertarian.)