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Hacker News Guidelines

(news.ycombinator.com)
446 points tonmoy | 3 comments | 24 Aug 23 16:25 UTC | HN request time: 1.027s | source
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yjftsjthsd-h ◴[24 Aug 23 17:09 UTC] No.37251581[source]▶
The one thing I wish was added - either in the guidelines or as a change to the actual web UI - was replying to a comment that you're downvoting; it's frustrating both to have one's own comments downvoted without explanation, and to come across a comment that's grey without obvious reason (Was it factually incorrect? Endorsing an unpopular idea? It's not always obvious).

(I'm not saying HN should do exactly the same thing, but one example is Slashdot's system where a comment can get downvoted in a way that tags it specifically as trolling/offtopic/whatever - https://slashdot.org/faq/mod-metamod.shtml seems to describe it alright)

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TRiG_Ireland ◴[24 Aug 23 17:14 UTC] No.37251684[source]▶
Comments to explain downvotes are nice, and should perhaps be encouraged, but they certainly shouldn't be mandatory.
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1. pvg ◴[24 Aug 23 19:12 UTC] No.37253268[source]▶
They are explicitly discouraged in the guidelines this thread is about.
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2. yjftsjthsd-h ◴[24 Aug 23 20:03 UTC] No.37253853[source]▶
Commenting about downvotes themselves is discouraged. Commenting on the reasons why somebody was downvoted is a separate matter
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3. pvg ◴[24 Aug 23 20:10 UTC] No.37253922[source]▶
No it's not. It's the whole meta-discussion about voting in general. And, it doesn't say it explicitly, but almost all meta-discussion itself. You can find both of these explained in the moderator commentary over the years.