It's because any time someone uses this expression, they are trying to convince everyone that we should adopt their harebrained flat tax strategy, or something. When someone has evidence to assert their beliefs, everyone listens. When someone starts spouting garbage about the "inconvenient truth" about how the rich are being oppressed by a 20% tax rate... well, then everyone tunes out.
I think it's more inconvenient truths like "Your startup is overwhelmingly likely to fail".
Those types of pragmatic posts/comments generally are hushed over in favor of the more exuberant ones.
You're also not allowed to say non-flattering things about people who HN holds dear. I guess that fits under 'inconvenient truths'.
This place is great, but there is a bit of orthodoxy in the mindset - quite unfortunate, actually, as I don't think that fits at all with the 'hacker' mindset.
Do you have an example of someone's comment being deleted for this reason? Someone being banned from hn or experiencing any adverse effects other than being downvoted?
If I came here and posted a comment to the effect of "Paul Graham is a huge idiot", I would expect to get downvoted, but I will have succeeded in saying it.
Is your idea of freedom of speech "nobody gets mad at anything I say, even if my remark is formulated specifically to get them mad"?
I'm not referring to censorship from the administration at all. I'm referring to voting patterns in relation to the expression of honest opinions about 'sacred cows' of HN.
So,
a> no, no adverse effects other than being downvoted (which is a form of suppression of speech through discouragement).
b> that's a bit of a leading idea, assuming I am referring to statements which serve no purpose other than to intentionally inflame. I'm talking about honest opinions, offered as such, which happen to go against the group orthodoxy on HN.
I wouldn't say 'getting mad' would be an issue. Actually, what I'm thinking is more in line with what you are assuming - people make the assumption that a certain line of thinking is being offered solely to be provocative, and they do not take the ideas as having been offered seriously, and rather than engage the idea, downvote as if the intent of the poster was not to seriously engage in discussion.
I'd actually point out that HN is self-correcting. When you offer a comment that goes against the group orthodoxy, and you get downvoted to hell, all it takes is one additional comment pointing out that the downvotes were uncalled for, and that you do have a point regardless, and HN will self-correct. (Personal example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1661588)
Most times, however, people stop after they get unfairly downvoted, and think to themselves: 'well, that's group-think for you!'
Downvoting is often used to express extreme disagreement. Ideally it might not be, but there are no real guidelines on how to use downvoting, and no good mechanism to enforce them if they existed.
It seems to me like the problem isn't that there are certain things you aren't allowed to say, but that there certain things that a large group of people aren't going to even bother taking seriously. It could be because they've seen the argument before and consider it both obviously wrong and inflammatory, or it could be because they've been brainwashed / self-deluded. Regardless, that is a problem with humanity, not the hacker news community.
a> no, no adverse effects other than being downvoted (which is a form of suppression of speech through discouragement).
This bears repeating. People here keep saying you shouldn't care about downvotes, but you nailed it. In effect, it amounts to "silencing dissent" (when applicable).
It's very rare to see a well-articulated, reasonable opinion get downvoted on this website.
HN seems to be slowly catching the disease where stupid popular opinions get upvoted an unreasonable amount (I call this "Slashdot Disease"), but this isn't nearly as dangerous as censorship by downvote.
I personally have posted mathematically provable facts that happened to go against popular opinion be downvoted into negativity, so I wouldn't say it's that rare.
On the whole, the general behavior seems to trend towards upvoting interestingness, but it's by no means insanely uncommon at all, I think.
It's rare for a well articulated, reasonable, relevant, respectful opinion to be downvoted. But recall, a statement can be mathematically provable and yet fail on another of those points.
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Since you brought it up: in the specific case you're probably referring to [0], you say that you're "not sure exactly what [the parent post is] taking issue with", but the original author of the piece responded to the parent post letting him know he'd corrected his mistake [1]. So while your assertion was technically mathematically correct, I would say it was not relevant, and in fact was dismissive of a relevant concern, which I think explains the downvotes. I do not think it's fair to characterize it as being downvoted because it "happened to go against popular opinion". (I cannot say for sure; I did not vote on any of those comments, but I think I understand the sentiment of those who did.)
I'm glad you brought it up -- I figured it was bad form to do so personally, and was even ashamed of posting the comment you responded to here.
That said, I didn't see Max Klein's response, so I'm quite glad you pointed that out to me, as it was curious; However, I don't feel I was dismissive in the slightest. In light of the correction, I can see how others could view my stance as at odds with reality, but I personally didn't see cause for concern. Again though, my reading / interpretation of the statement was clearly not what was intended, so my logic is predicated upon a fallacy.
I feel I understand it much better now that you've brought it up, because I was honestly dumbfounded at the time.
Still, so as not to betray my Irish stubbornness, it _was_ mathematically correct. ;-)
I'm not sure that's entirely true, although I've seen certain topics frowned upon in a general sense (I'm thinking of politics). What do you have in mind?
Not in my experience. Sure, if the post is either offtopic (to the site) or easily mistaken for trolling, it's going to be downvoted pretty quickly.
From the guidelines:
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
So even if it's related to the original submission, a post might be off-topic.
