zlacker

>>lordna+(OP)
I guess it is a perfect opportunity to thank dang and sctb for their unobtrusive and friendly moderation efforts.

The article itself was a bit disappointing because it focused on political issues. In my opinion the strength of HN in this regard is that it is both a "sjw cesspool" and a "haven for alt-right", as evidenced by the fact that a comment on a controversial topic can easily float near zero points while raking in both upvotes and downvotes. And even those who refer to it as "the orange site" still come back and comment. In other words, HN may be an echo chamber but it is a pretty big one with a lot of voices in it.

>>dunkel+xc
Given the kind of people who frequent HN (lots of skilled, wealthy and fairly powerful people) there is a large incentive to game the system.

I assume that the mass upvotes/downvotes are exactly that.

>>radica+Hf
I've had my share of suspicions of "downvote brigades" and the like but from the point of view of an ordinary user they are indistinguishable from uncoordinated users expressing their disapproval so I guess it is best to just assume good faith.

It is actually fascinating to know how much of this type of behaviour is visible to the moderators and how big of a problem it is (and of course they too can't see the full extent of it).