Ditto. First comment(s) downvoted here too... by karma bigwig. I call it karma bullying. No explanation, aside from bigwig contradictions + downvoting. No real discussion, no arc of learning, no social reality check. Just a lot of specious scientific gobbledygook... and the karma bully downvoting. Hideous and abusive... especially to a first-timer.
Also, YCHN has all sorts of (undocumented) nasty consequences for anyone unlucky enough to get bullied into negative territory, e.g.: throttling posts (so bullies automatically "win" discussion), effectively censoring victim, losing posts before posting, pretending posts show (but not showing them publically), losing posts even after "successful" posting, getting negative points from no discernible source, and ultimately... hellbanning (all new posts invisible) ≡ permanent (?) bully victim censorship regardless of content topic, quality, or timeliness. E.g., you can not read this post (if you can, please reply to it explaining where and how you read it). Then perhaps I'll know there's a recovery path from hellbanning. Otherwise, once a YCHNhellbankarmabullyvictim, always a YCHNhellbankarmabullyvictim.
Net effect (as I gather): you can never recover from a ruthless negative karma bullying. Meanwhile the bullies get more karma for bullying. What a load of bullocks!-)
One funny thing is that I didn't even know what was going on at the time. I was "learning the ropes." Unfortunately, I was too "slow" learning the ropes to know I was being ruthlessly bullied. I still do not know where all the -18 points come from. Even ignoring any positive points from a few posts before the hellbanning effect kicked in, I count only -14 points. I guess at YCHN, they're using new math or something.
Now (still ignoring any positive points), if I count each of my four posts with negative points as a negative point, each, then I get another -4 points for "the" total of -18 points. But that's really pushing to find those missing -4 points. YCHN should make its "modes" explicit: Here are all your negative points; here's why you got negative points; here's where you became hellbanned (and define the term; I'd never heard of it before I became karma bully victim); and here's how you become un-hellbanned.
Unfortunately, in a computer forest, noone can hear you scream. I.e., noone cares at YCHN --- YCHN hellbanning AI is smarter than humans, so humans do not need to care.
Welcome to the Matrix.
Really a laugh riot when you think of the negative spiral effects of YCHN from what is supposed to be such a karmic hotspot of technology news and activity. I suspect the programmer/designers are very proud of themselves. Laugh riot about sums up my YCHN experience from first interaction, indefinitely, and, without any fix for the current karma beartrap, forever.
Yup. My introduction to YCHNews was hate points. Then I got slammed by some karma bullies. Now I'm at -18 karma. Pretty amusing actually.
I think some people have too many points and like to spend them to stroke their own egos, and I think the lack of accountability breeds some sort of YCombinator feeding frenzy (aka bullying). It seems to be unique (in my experience) to YCHN, so I suspect it's something about their "karma" system. Too bad, because the news is often good, and it would be nice if the site/members were nice too.
Perfect topic for me to post on... as apparently I'm hell banned. My previous posting is invisible (even from same IP address). As usual, YCombinator Hacker News is a total joke... even in a thread where, as a hellbanning victim, my opinion is probably the single most informed. :-)
I love YCombinator Hacker News. It's so unbiased, open discourse, and balanced. :-)
2) Unpopular disruptive knowledge is trivially targeted by bullies.
3) It's not just down voting and bullies which are BROKEN --- the karma implementation lends itself to bullying through its mysterious behaviors (as alluded to by this topic, e.g., hellbanning) and negative spiral powerplays.
4) Informed opinions trivially get lost in the "You're submitting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks." --- YCombinator passive aggressive powerplay. I.e., rapid threads and frequent participation leads (automatically) to censorship. Just the opposite of healthy discourse! (Not to mention: censored posts are automatically lost via "slow down" powerplay. I now copy-to-pasteboard all my HN postings --- as a form of self-defense and time-saving... just in case. Ridiculous.)
5) There's no practical recovery for victims of karma bullying.
+1) I now consider negative karma (on YCombinator Hacker News) a badge of honor due to the fundamentally broken "karma" system touched on by this thread.
news.ycombinator.com: nasty experience so far. Got bullied by some reputation whores. My reputation went from -2 to -19... and I even got locked _completely_ out of news.ycombinator.com during the experience. So my "karma" went down when I not only was NOT participating but was NOT even able to read the site. Total joke. One more thing: there's no cause-and-effect explanation for the negative karma --- I am just guessing it had to do with one particular guy and his buds.
Not a great way to promote participation. I posted in some detail about the experience, but did not get voted up. In my experience, YC's version of participation is definitely broken and promotes bullying and disinformation.
I was trying to figure out what the "avg:" was in profiles. Then I compared a couple, and one bully (bullying someone else this time) had modest avg: while the victim had very high average, but bully has very high "karma" --- which seemed counter-intuitive. Low value posts but high karma? So I wasn't sure what "avg:" was if not post points.
But I believe it is post points. So, for high "karma," bully must post a LOT, but his posts are not well received (even though high "karma" would suggest otherwise). So (guessing) "karma" seems more about quantity (than quality) in bully cases.
Then, since I have negative "karma", I got curious about my own "avg:" since I didn't realize I had one. So I checked.
Apparently when your "karma" is negative, you have no "avg." :-) YC/HN just leaves the value blank. So I am holding steady at -19 YC/HN "karma" and have no "avg: [this space intentionally left blank by YC/HN]"
Yeah, this YCombinator/HN site is socially degenerate and (I gather) fundamentally broken.
When I posted my question, I was at -2. Then after reading your post, I commented on a technical topic (audio and hearing) which I know a lot about. I still got negative feedback. My viewpoint was too informed for this site, and one or a bunch of high-powered HN toughs started slamming my post(s). If, as you suggest YC/HN locks accounts due to negative points, these guys were locking me out of my account.
Net effect: censorship.
The more I posted, the more I got slammed (I didn't know at the time). So the more resident bullies pick arguments, the more they can pick on you. It's a natural downward spiral.
Net effect: heavy, inexplicable (to victim) censorship. Bullies get jollies.
Bottom line: victims are censored from even supporting their points, bullies get the pulpit free and clear (i.e., they "win", and the readers lose), and bullies get more points to bully (I assume).
That's degenerate and broken for a news site. Just the opposite of what's needed in an open, honest communication channel.
But it's worse than that.
-=-
At first I thought I was locked out for 30 seconds or so as you suggested, and I was able to keep my draft posts open for posting later. But YC/HN lockout proceeded for somewhere between 28 and 36 hours, or well over a DAY. So I lost all three of my posts.
Of course, even though YC/HN knew I was in the middle of posts ("You're submitting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks."), YC/HN did not save the posts. They destroyed them. By going BACK I was able to recover them, but only as long as my browser (or machine) did not bork and require restarting.
So the effect is chilling. YC/HN goes out of its way to destroy posts. The bullies (I assume) abuse their privileges, but YC/HN enables the nasty behavior and pernicious results (heavily delayed or destroyed posts; incomplete and imbalanced conversations). The posts would be useless now 1. because the thread is old, and 2. because the conversation is too twisted and controlled by the bullies.
So YC/HN promotes more than censorship, banning, and destruction of posts. They promote a culture of bullying and twisted information (at least on bully topics).
And I don't see any levers on my account to undo the damage or counter the bullying (modulo candid post like this one). So, the YC/HN policy promotes ignorance (obstinate attackers), bullying (nasty attackers), and disinformation (the ignorant feed off imbalanced information).
Is that YC/HN intention? No idea, but the site is broken. That I DO know.
So here's what makes the situation even worse: I am largely _guessing_ about what happened, because I really don't know why I was kicked off for over a day. In other words, the effects are not causal related or explained. You have to reverse engineer the mystery man (YC/HN) behind the bullying. And, I assume, the perps of the attack succeed by cutting you out of the conversation --- anonymously. Well, presumably, except for the one dude I replied to who, I believe, instigated the attacks.
Finally (for this post anyway), two more things.
1. I didn't just get cut off from posting as the "You're submitting too fast." message suggested. I do not know how complicated YC/HN disruption algorithm is or what it pertains to (or even if it was just some personal attack by a power-user), but whatever the case, YC/HN kicked me off from even READING http://news.ycombinator.com. AT ALL.
MY INTERNET ADDRESS was completely cut-off. No matter if logged out from YC/HN. No matter if in different browser. No matter if on different computer. NO MATTER WHAT. YC/HN kicked me off even just reading from anywhere, any who, any computer at my internet address. Yikes!
So: READING is VERBOTEN. Your IP Address is VERBOTEN.
Thank you, Gestapo YC/HN! What a nasty, heavy-handed, inexplicable, ridiculous tactic.
Just Insane.
So not only are the YC/HN site attack measures largely modal (dangerously and inscrutably hidden in cause-and-effect), but the effects are absurdly broad and heavy-handed. With a system like this, it's no wonder bullies lurk here.
2. The most humorous thing about this whole experience is that I'm a newbie on the site (or, perhaps, _was_; now I'm a veteran victim and quite "experienced"!-), was just coming up to speed (thanks to your post) when I got ambushed again, kicked off, and... (wait for it :-) when I returned after doing NOTHING AT ALL for 36 HOURS, my YC/HN "karma" went DOWN from -2 to -19 (or thereabouts; it's -19 now at moment of this post). My reaction: it's a badge of honor to have negative karma on YC/HN.
Repeat: YC/HN karma went from -2 to -19 without me doing anything... while kicked out of posting... while kicked off of reading... while my entire IP Address (all browsers, all computers) were prevented from even accessing the site (blank content returned).
Absurd.
In other words, the system and the bullies are so ridiculous here, that it's a TOTAL JOKE.
So I'm not expecting great things from YC/HN. After recently putting it on my daily URL's, I have now taken it off (no surprise). BULLY EFFECT successful. But I will check back when bored, to see what the YC/HN bully system is doing to my account. If it floats up, so be it. Maybe the system will "apologize." If it goes down, then I just take it as ludicrous, misguided gamification ≡ bully system at its best.
-=-
kaolinite (and a few other friendly posters), thank you for the heads up on the YC/HN situation. Your comments were prescient to what happened to my account. And they were both a breath of fresh air and very enlightening in an otherwise nasty, brutish situation.
Thanks for enlightening me re: censorship of posts. The first version of my post included a paragraph raising the issue of censorship (since I could not find my comment with a page search). So I thought the -1 was hiding my comment Then I found the "More" button, and discovered my comment... at the very bottom. So I deleted that paragraph, so I wouldn't create a red herring of my own... and to be fair to HN.
However, with your observation, I suspect my comment is censored, but I just can't tell. I don't care enough at this point to verify it. (My next comment will explain why.)
If CD quality (44.1 KHz/16 bit) is that good, why hasn't the market for vinyl (analogue >> 192 KHz/24-bit) just withered away and died (instead of reviving)?
The psychological component is a red herring. Even though I already have a system (bias), I don't care about the other systems. I went to the show for enjoyment, education, and appreciation. Some of the systems were unknown to me (no bias), and some were known and surprised me in some ways (again, some bias overridden). So bias can be important, but it's not relevant in this case. So bias doesn't invalidate my experience.
As for the double-blind and high frequencies, I believe I've already done the test. I have had my hearing tested several times. One of them, I recall the tester actually asked me to repeat some tests... it was funny. The testing was at very high frequencies. I believe she thought I was guessing the higher/lower frequencies... and getting lucky. So (I strongly suspect) she wanted to "prove" to herself what you want to prove --- that noone can hear above 20KHz. I disappointed her. I think she even threw in some placebo tests (no frequencies at all). It was funny. She never explained herself. I suspect she just thought I got lucky again.
How to really test this stuff? Get one of the audio designers to test... but they will laugh in the testers' faces. They do this stuff for a living... to build real products... for real live customers who can hear the differences. Dave Wilson was at the A/V show. Try listening to a pair of Wilson Audio speakers. I bet he can hear better than just about anyone... His speakers (when sourced and driven properly) are that good. But he wouldn't waste his time on such tests. He has customers to serve and a business to run.
I doubt lab experiments look to disprove their theories once and for all. That's a social prejudice built into the lab experiments. Fix that, and you'll end up with a better hypothesis.
Isn't science verified through (wait for it...) experimentation? So how does my hearing not invalidate your science?
That's the problem with the theoretical science. When it's false, it's false. Come up with a new hypothesis; this one's false as it pertains to human hearing. There's information theory, and then there's auditory reality. Reality confounds the theory as applied to hearing. I don't know where the fault lies, and I don't really care.
But it's really annoying and frustrating having people nix progress out of idealistic theory, "laboratory" studies, and ignorance. The experiments (my experiences and numerous others) don't lie.
Double-blind is great, but I can already tell the differences between all six rooms of equipment from last week. One of the rooms was so extreme, I wanted to run out of the room due to discomfort (but I was polite and stayed all 30 minutes). In other words, double-blind was unnecessary. Someone whose ears I respect a great deal, loved that room. Even golden ears don't all hear the same. But I don't need double-blind to confirm trivial experience. The proof is already in the listening.
Sometimes less is more. The debate goes on. Why not just let the music play? And by that I mean high resolution music. All you need is one person who can hear high frequencies, and all the technical mumble-jumble becomes hogwash.
People actually _believe_ the 20KHz argument that anything above is inaudible. That's hogwash. I know because I can hear (or sense) higher frequencies, and I do not have the absolute best ears I've ever "met."
For example, last week I attended a A/V equipment event with very high-end equipment. It was packed --- over 600 people for one evening. 6 rooms of equipment. I'm sure all six served the same fare according to the 20-20KHz argument of this piece, yet they all sounded quite (or even extremely) different.
The 20 KHz argument is a myth. For people who can't hear the difference, no problem. But please do refrain from ruining or hobbling music for the rest of us... who can hear a wider frequency range.
Yes, some people are color blind. Does that mean the rest of us shouldn't use color? I hope not.
Music is an important wholesome and potentially emotional part of human life. Please do not cap it with "false optimizations".
24-bit/192 KHz is not inferior to CD quality sound. If you don't believe me, try a Linn system sourced on a Klimax DS with some high bitrate Linn classical music (or the Beatles Masters USB release!). If you can't hear the difference compared to low bit-rate (including CD quality) material, I assure you someone can. The low bit-rate will sound flat, hollow, less lively, or/and more coarse. Any number of problems exhibit at inadequate bit levels.
Vinyl is analogue quality (no discrete digital distortion). CD quality is a large step down from vinyl. A/V is just trying to get vinyl like quality from digital. We don't need nay-sayers impeding progress. If you can't hear the difference, please let someone who can hear make the informed decisions.
Thank you for the constructive and positive feedback --- breath of fresh air.
The politics red flag you raise seems appropriate for a technical site like this one (but the topic of the thread was lobbyists and politics). So, daring to defend my comments, they were on-topic for the copyright/lobbyists issue under discussion (and I don't think there really is room for a full disclosure explanation of the comments).
Perhaps I'll have something of value to say on more technical topics, but the anonymous "big brother" introduction was (and frankly still is) a bit chilling, especially considering this site isn't even mass media (AFAIK).
To illegalize lobbying permanently, we have to clean house as a nation (easier said than done). That amounts to doing at least three things on a permanent basis:
1. Purge congress, and rehab it with genuinely honest legislators (not career politicians) --- for each and every state (or at least the vast majority of them).
2. Purge at least 5 corrupt Supreme Court Of The United States (SCOTUS) members, and replace them with honest, real justices. But you can't just fire SC justices (unless we change the law, that is; see #1, above)... so this process could take time (i.e., not overnight). And two more things relating to SC justices: first, we need to remove or rehab the corrupt farm system of justices which feeds corrupt ones to SCOTUS candidacy in the first place (and probably the farm system for politicians for #1, above), and second: ...
3. We need to purge the executive office of corruption, including the political party running as both democrats and republicans --- and rehab our political system to create real choice, honest Presidents and cabinets, and select honest SCOTUS justices (i.e., second part of #2, above). Only then should we expect to make any real progress as a nation, or more to the point, only then should we expect to have any chance to derail our current national train wreck.
So, your observation and point are spot on, but we have our work cut out for us. We need Democracy to work, but ours has not been so resilient under pressures of wholesale internal corruption. Can we recover our democracy, or, as far as our national political will is concerned, are we already the walking dead (harsh, but perhaps true)?
Bottom line: we need to rehab our democracy, our nation, our culture, our political expectations, and our political will, and perhaps our political science education system (i.e., from missing in action to addressing organized corruption head-on in curriculum), and then have a go at rehabbing as a nation.
Also, YCHN has all sorts of (undocumented) nasty consequences for anyone unlucky enough to get bullied into negative territory, e.g.: throttling posts (so bullies automatically "win" discussion), effectively censoring victim, losing posts before posting, pretending posts show (but not showing them publically), losing posts even after "successful" posting, getting negative points from no discernible source, and ultimately... hellbanning (all new posts invisible) ≡ permanent (?) bully victim censorship regardless of content topic, quality, or timeliness. E.g., you can not read this post (if you can, please reply to it explaining where and how you read it). Then perhaps I'll know there's a recovery path from hellbanning. Otherwise, once a YCHN hellban karma bully victim, always a YCHN hellban karma bully victim.
Net effect (as I gather): you can never recover from a ruthless negative karma bullying. Meanwhile the bullies get more karma for bullying. What a load of bullocks!-)
One funny thing is that I didn't even know what was going on at the time. I was "learning the ropes." Unfortunately, I was too "slow" learning the ropes to know I was being ruthlessly bullied. I still do not know where all the -18 points come from. Even ignoring any positive points from a few posts before the hellbanning effect kicked in, I count only -14 points. I guess at YCHN, they're using new math or something.
Now (still ignoring any positive points), if I count each of my four posts with negative points as a negative point, each, then I get another -4 points for "the" total of -18 points. But that's really pushing to find those missing -4 points. YCHN should make its "modes" explicit: Here are all your negative points; here's why you got negative points; here's where you became hellbanned (and define the term; I'd never heard of it before I became karma bully victim); and here's how you become un-hellbanned.
Unfortunately, in a computer forest, noone can hear you scream. I.e., noone cares at YCHN --- YCHN hellbanning AI is smarter than humans, so humans do not need to care.
Really a laugh riot when you think of the negative spiral effects of YCHN from what is supposed to be such a karmic hotspot of technology news and activity. I suspect the programmer/designers are very proud of themselves. Laugh riot about sums up my YCHN experience from first interaction, indefinitely, and, without any fix for the current karma beartrap, forever.