Hacker News Guidelines

"Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."

Unless the context of the discussion is about voting (such as with these threads), I have a quick trigger finger when it comes to voting down comments that talk about votes.

Even if someone is asking "why am I getting down voted" or "If you are going to vote down, tell me why" complaints are annoying and pointless. Sometimes I explain, but it's not worth it, so I just vote down comments that do this.

Tangent

See, when someone does answer why they are getting voted down, the person being voted down will generally argue with the person answering, which just means you didn't want to learn why people were voting you down, and rather, you wanted to argue. If you just thanked the person for answering "why are people voting down my comment", you'd get the answer more often. But answering that question is generally NOT an invitiation to argue the merits of the reasoning for voting down.

For example, let's say I know you are getting voted down because I've rouintely see your comment get voted down because a group of people think it's wrong for whatever reason. So, I answer: "You are getting voted down because people think you are wrong." If you come back and argue with me, saying you aren't wrong... you've missed the entire exchange. I'm not necessarily arguing for one side or another, I'm simply explaining why you are getting voted down. Feel free to disagree with the reasoning, but it doesn't make my answer wrong.

End Tangent

Anyways, if you want to know why you are being voted down by people you respect, do your research. And if you don't respect the people voting you down, why does it matter what they think?

It's possible to want both.

I've gotten downvoted for comments I probably never should have made (or at least should have heavily edited), and I understand. In fact I've made comments where I later thought "that should get downvoted" and been weirdly disappointed when it got upvoted instead ("I should have done a better job with that comment for it to deserve those upvotes"). I don't ask those people to explain their downvotes. I'm not proud of everything I've posted and those downvotes improve the discourse. In fact in reading these comments, I now suspect my account has that shadow rate-limiting flag on it and deserves it.

On the other hand, I've also gotten some truly inexplicable downvotes. Downvotes that I could not imagine anyone doing in good faith. Those downvotes do not improve the discourse and the community, they're simply infuriating and foster ill will, and these guidelines are all about fostering good will. If the person even made an effort to explain why I was downvoted, sure, I might continue to argue with them, but I would also appreciate the explanation and accept and understand their downvote.