Similar behaviours and reactions can be seen on a lot of otherwise professional internet forums. I think its the difference in the following kind of people
- A highly skilled professional
- A highly skilled, non-professional
Just because someone has a very well developed skillset, it doesn't necessarily dictate good conduct. Most art / illustration forums suffer from this problem - to generalize, they will have a subset of highly skilled people who ultimately aren't professional in their conduct and reply with some severely inappropriate responses.
It's the same scenario too - when a user submits content that is significantly below the general quality standard of the community (in earnest, being a legitimate effort on their behalf), two responses are generally provided due to the difference in these groups:
- Professionals tend to ignore the content or provide some indicators of which basics to cover
- Non-professionals flame and attack the user due to their level of ability
It's regrettable but the latter often has quite a negative effect. If you can look at someones work and recognise that they are highly skilled, but not understand that they are of poor professional character, you will take on board what they say as being correct or fair.
It's the kind of conduct that stunts a lot of people who aren't thick skinned about their trade.
Yes, I think you are correct. Downvoters have to be people with otherwise insightful comments (they need certain amount of karma to be able to downvote). Newcomers cannot downvote.
On a side note: I think that too many people misunderstand the purpose of voting. If you agree, upvote. If you disagree, do nothing. Downvote only if a comment is trollish or completely off-topic. If you think that the commenter doesn't understand the topic, help him overcome his ignorance, don't downvote him.
As I see it, "upvote = agree" increases the danger of groupthink. I try to downvote complete wastes of time or detractions from the discussion, and upvote thought-provoking contributions even when I disagree.
groupthink is a state where people self-censor in fear of rejection or repression.
Only down-voting when disagreeing can cause groupthink since people who disagree with the consensus will stop posting disagreeing comments to preserve their karma.
Not sure it reflects on the entire community. Proposition - that the majority of users are well intentioned and participate by either upvoting or not voting. The minority aggressively downvote for whatever reason. In this circumstance, the aggressive downvoters are misrepresented simply because they are more active / their behaviour is more recognised.
Additionally, due to a generally positive bias (supposing we all generally like YC, HN and have a common positive attitude towards startup culture), the downvotes are more noticable / memorable than things that are frequently upvoted.
Same reason all you can focus on is that chip in your windscreen when realistically its only 2% of the entire window. =)
- A highly skilled professional
- A highly skilled, non-professional
Just because someone has a very well developed skillset, it doesn't necessarily dictate good conduct. Most art / illustration forums suffer from this problem - to generalize, they will have a subset of highly skilled people who ultimately aren't professional in their conduct and reply with some severely inappropriate responses.
It's the same scenario too - when a user submits content that is significantly below the general quality standard of the community (in earnest, being a legitimate effort on their behalf), two responses are generally provided due to the difference in these groups:
- Professionals tend to ignore the content or provide some indicators of which basics to cover
- Non-professionals flame and attack the user due to their level of ability
It's regrettable but the latter often has quite a negative effect. If you can look at someones work and recognise that they are highly skilled, but not understand that they are of poor professional character, you will take on board what they say as being correct or fair.
It's the kind of conduct that stunts a lot of people who aren't thick skinned about their trade.