It's a bit funny to notice how the folks on HN generally haven't studied
the site they are using. Sure, there is source code available for the
forum through arclanguage.org, but it does not include all of the secret
sauce that PG is actually running on HN.
If you believe that you have unlimited voting on HN, you are mistaken.
Some votes and flags don't count, or better said, count less. There are
thresholds in place to prevent excessive voting, up or down, and
excessive flagging. How you vote/flag is weighted in a number of ways.
For example, if you flag submissions that are heavily up-voted by
others, your flags might count less, but if you flag submissions that
are heavily flagged by others (till [dead]), your flags might count
more.
Can I "prove" the above with actual code running on HN? --NO. The most I
can do is point out posts where PG has (vaguely) explained how things
work, and of course, things may have changed since he posted his
explanations. Also, there's probably tons of other secret sauce that he
has very intentionally never mentioned.
The meaning of "up" and "down" votes has never been defined. Some might
use votes to indicate agreement or disagreement. Others might use votes
to indicate appreciation, contribution, or other personally defined
metrics.
I'll flag spam submissions and posts, but I'll only down-vote when
someone is clearly and intentionally being an ass. Though it might seem
odd compared to other forums, I often up-vote people I disagree with (or
who disagree with me -- same thing) because I appreciate the time they
took to share their views and opinions with me and everyone else. None
of us have a monopoly on knowledge, so finding other ways to look at
something is always beneficial. Agreeing or disagreeing with another
point of view is less important than appreciating and learning from
other ways of looking at things.
How you vote/flag is weighted in a number of ways.
I've certainly noticed that my own karma isn't strictly related to the number of upvotes/downvotes I get in a certain time period, (a day for example). Moreover is seems that posts that are heavily upvoted may not reflect on my karma for a day or two - in fact my karma seemed to be increasing due to a post I made about a week ago, even though I hadn't posted in the meantime.
I always figured that was some sort of anti-spam fuzzing (similar to what Reddit does) in calculating karma, but it's even better (IMO) if what you wrote is correct.
If you believe that you have unlimited voting on HN, you are mistaken. Some votes and flags don't count, or better said, count less. There are thresholds in place to prevent excessive voting, up or down, and excessive flagging. How you vote/flag is weighted in a number of ways. For example, if you flag submissions that are heavily up-voted by others, your flags might count less, but if you flag submissions that are heavily flagged by others (till [dead]), your flags might count more.
Can I "prove" the above with actual code running on HN? --NO. The most I can do is point out posts where PG has (vaguely) explained how things work, and of course, things may have changed since he posted his explanations. Also, there's probably tons of other secret sauce that he has very intentionally never mentioned.
The meaning of "up" and "down" votes has never been defined. Some might use votes to indicate agreement or disagreement. Others might use votes to indicate appreciation, contribution, or other personally defined metrics.
I'll flag spam submissions and posts, but I'll only down-vote when someone is clearly and intentionally being an ass. Though it might seem odd compared to other forums, I often up-vote people I disagree with (or who disagree with me -- same thing) because I appreciate the time they took to share their views and opinions with me and everyone else. None of us have a monopoly on knowledge, so finding other ways to look at something is always beneficial. Agreeing or disagreeing with another point of view is less important than appreciating and learning from other ways of looking at things.