| I know that feeling all too well. A few months ago I decided to focus on high quality comments after feeling like I was contributing to the HN noise a bit too much. As a proxy for that, I tracked my average comment score, trying to get it above 10. Today it's 14.93, which is quite high - only 4 of the top 100 are higher. I think my comment quality has risen substantially, but I also subconsciously started making decisions based on score - not posting on topics that were sliding down the front page, or where there were already hundreds of comments but I did have something to say. In short, the gamification overtook the original goal, and the tail was wagging the dog. I've now started using a much simpler method - taking a deep breath before hitting reply, and trashing the comment if I don't think I'm adding anything to the conversation. I like this way more. |
The first couple of times I was banned it hurt me maybe more than one would expect. I took it personally, I thought about it deeply, I really took it as a wake-up call. I thought long and hard about what was wrong with my personality that the (IMO) best community on the web would actively act to expel me.
One of my later accounts, I acted like you're describing. I tried hard to stay "on message" and to write the kind of things I theorised HN would want to hear.
I think I snapped at one point and yelled at someone. That account is, of course, now hellbanned along with all the rest. I don't even remember the username. By the way, my first account here was either on the leaderboard or maybe a few points off. It was a long time ago.
These days I am more zen-like about the whole thing. I mostly write what I want. I do try not to be abusive - my character is flawed enough that sometimes that's what comes naturally. If I get banned, well, that's life. But I do what you say, taking a second to think about whether my comment adds something - if it doesn't, I just delete it and move on. I think that's perhaps a sign of maturity, when you're willing to throw away your own words (that you might have spent half an hour perfecting) because you recognise they're probably more destructive than constructive to the community you respect.