Ask HN: Are HN comments automatically downvoted by algorithms?

7 points by gull 10 years ago | 26 comments

I'm starting to wonder if comments posted on HN are examined by algorithms and automatically downvoted. Like an attempt to mute stupidity and block malice.

Has anyone noticed this with comments they've posted?

brudgers 10 years ago |

Personally, I downvote destructive comments and flag harmful ones. My impression is that others do the same. I've never seen anything to suggest that there is algorithm beyond those that affect community members under shadow bans. My understanding is that people wind up in that state by hand, but I have no direct knowledge.

gull 10 years ago | |

Thank you for this. I hadn't realized there is a difference between downvoting and flagging comments until I read your post. I hope other HN users know of this difference.

rnovak 10 years ago |

There are a lot of people on HN, and a lot of people with downvote privilege, and there are a lot of people who just generally downvote because they disagree with something.

Even if your opinion is completely positive, if people disagree, and a lot of people see it, you will get downvoted just because they disagree (and no one will reply to your comment to disagree, it's a drive-by-downvote).

There's also verification of this by HN mods: Several comment threads exist where they keep increasing the downvote threshold (from 300, to 400, to 500, and beyond). But it still doesn't solve the problem.

runawaybottle 10 years ago | |

Perhaps some random percentage of down-votes should require a response (every third, or something).

veddox 10 years ago | |

I find that really annoying when people downvote a comment because they don't agree with it. IMO, the downvoting privilege should be used only to indicate a flawed argumentation or negative content.

mschuster91 10 years ago |

It's rather the upvoting of threads as well as their subthreads. Active threads move to the top.

lgieron 10 years ago |

There seems to be an algorithm which demotes some posters (at least one) voicing opinions unfavorable to YC.

EDIT: just got downvoted without any comment. I wonder if I am on the kill list as well.

DanBC 10 years ago | |

HN mods repeatedly say that they do not penalise people who post negative stuff about YC or YC companies.

But negative comments tend to get downvotes, (avoid gratuitous negativity) so people posting negative stuff should try to support it.

lgieron 10 years ago | | |

My own post was taken down before, so I'm pretty sure some form of censorship exists. I don't know if it's enforced by mods or implemented otherwise, but that's a minor point.