[Animats]

There's a strange phenomenon if you make negative remarks about Apple on forums such as HN or Slashdot. They tend to be voted up shortly after posting. Then, about an hour later, a lot of downvotes come in. I've seen this several times, with a consistent response delay of about an hour. After the downvotes at one hour, more upvotes may come in; the downvote effort is a one-time event.

Anyone else seeing this?

[m3rc]

I see it with pretty much any divisive opinion. People who don't share the opinion in the original low score comment don't pay it any attention and don't vote, but those who do share that opinion upvote it in a sort of comradery display. Then the comment gets higher up on the page, and the people who disagree now see it as a sentiment that people are actually discussing, and downvote it. In places like HN where the pro-Apple camp far outnumbers the anti-Apple camp, that leads to the comment being downvoted into oblivion.

Additionally, on HN you have the added strange behavior of the downvote button needing to be unlocked. Since the current prevailing attitude is very Apple-fanboy-ish the people that choose to stay around long enough to actually get the downvote tend to be those who agree with the pro-Apple sentiment, and those who dislike Apple (or any popular thing) tend to leave or aren't active enough to get their downvote button.

[arrrg]

Hihi, I have exactly the opposite impression of you re: views on Apple. In my mind a clear and overwhelming majority on here dislikes Apple very much or is at least very critical of Apple (even though they may still use their products). A smaller group despises Apple absolutely and everything they do and another smallish group really likes Apple.

How did we arrive at those opposite impressions of what’s going on here? I clearly think that a majority on here really doesn’t like Apple. That’s the prevailing attitude.

[m3rc]

Probably just different definitions of what constitutes dislike of Apple. I don't know you but you probably have a lower bar than me for an anti-Apple sentiment so see far more of it

[josu]

I believe that the HN crowd is educated enough not to fall for cheap manichaeism. It is true that Apple is a brand that tends to polarize opinions, but if a critic against Apple is well backed I don't think that people that usually support Apple would downvote it just out of spite or loyalty.

[m3rc]

I agree that a lot of Apple criticism is poorly backed or even unfounded, but I also believe that it's far easier to dismiss criticism for not being well backed than it is to dismiss praise for the same reason. While much of the Apple criticisms that get repeated don't have a ton of substance to them, you could easily say the same thing for the commonly repeated pro-Apple soundbytes.

[snowwrestler]

I sometimes see swings in votes on my comments, although not such a fixed one-hour schedule.

(And I'd challenge your perception of that schedule, unless you're carefully timing every post. Confirmation bias can be strong--once you have the idea that it's an hour, you will tend to remember the times that were close to an hour, and forget the ones that weren't.)

The downvote/upvote patterns I've seen seem to be more related to the time of day. Comments get voted down during the workday by people who are on HN during the workday; but sometimes they'll get voted up in the evening, presumably by people who only check into HN after work.

I see a similar pattern on the weekend--vote trends on Saturday afternoon will sometimes reverse on Sunday night, again I assume because folks too busy to post during the weekend are checking out HN before bed. In general, I find the quality of moderation on HN to be worse on the weekend.

There also seems to be a "heat of the moment" effect, where posts that go against the prevailing wisdom get downvoted right away, but then voted back up hours later. I assume that is because people who read the discussion hours later can take a more measured view of the whole discussion.

[serve_yay]

There are hardly ever trenchant criticisms of Apple here. It's the same ohhh they're too proprietary, form over function, their users are sheep, etc, etc. There are good criticisms of Apple to be made, but the crowd here almost never makes them.

[vacri]

'too proprietary' and 'low on function' are both good criticisms in context. What do you consider to be a good criticism on a developers' forum if "I can't access it" and "doesn't actually do much" don't count?

As for 'users are sheep' as a common criticism here, I think you might be projecting a bit.

[ctdonath]

I often see the same pattern in both directions on hot-button topics. There's a burst of short comments from those more emotionally for/against something, with the total score absolute value (up/down voting) becoming large enough to get the attention of the greater number of more thoughtful opposing-view people who aren't so wound up about it upvote & write longer comments, first to counteract the initial burst, and then to support the growing number of thoughtful responses.

I've seen it many times on my own posts: might get a -2 shortly after posting, but then +10 or so about an hour later. (Seems I often push buttons others agree need pushing.)

[m3rc]

doesn't "pushing buttons others agree need pushing" just mean "participating in an echo chamber"?

[ctdonath]

No. There may be a broad range of participants; sometimes those holding one view may stay quiet about it, but then find reason to rally behind someone promoting/defending it.