With a enough downvotes at HN, one's posts can be invisible to some depending upon their settings. Also, without enough upvotes one cannot downvote others. So, if one has enough sock accounts with upvotes, one can use those powerful accounts to downvote others they don't agree with into oblivion. People who don't use sockpuppets are at the mercy of those who do.
This situation creates a lot of incentive to create accounts where one censors their opinions, attaches to the "groupthink" in threads with sockpuppet accounts and troll for upvotes so one can can acquire many empowered accounts with the power to exact revenge and censorship on others.
Instead of working to censor for rudeness, it works to get others to align with groupthink in hopes that one can get into a positive upvote territory and eventually be able to downvote others and defend themselves from attacks by upvoting themselves with socks.
I wonder how many sockpuppet accounts are commenting and competing here on HN to simply be able to acquire power against one another? How many comments are simply disengenous trolling for upvotes?
It would be really enlightening if HN decided to stop making downvotes and upvotes anonymous where we could all see the patterns and make the connections between grassroots downvotes/upvotes and systematic downvotes/upvotes from multiple sockpuppets.
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As most everyone here knows...
With a enough downvotes at HN, one's posts can be invisible to some depending upon their settings. Also, without enough upvotes one cannot downvote others. So, if one has enough sock accounts with upvotes, one can use those powerful accounts to downvote others they don't agree with into oblivion. People who don't use sockpuppets are at the mercy of those who do.
This situation creates a lot of incentive to create accounts where one censors their opinions, attaches to the "groupthink" in threads with sockpuppet accounts and troll for upvotes so one can can acquire many empowered accounts with the power to exact revenge and censorship on others.
Instead of working to censor for rudeness, it works to get others to align with groupthink in hopes that one can get into a positive upvote territory and eventually be able to downvote others and defend themselves from attacks by upvoting themselves with socks.
I wonder how many sockpuppet accounts are commenting and competing here on HN to simply be able to acquire power against one another? How many comments are simply disengenous trolling for upvotes?
It would be really enlightening if HN decided to stop making downvotes and upvotes anonymous where we could all see the patterns and make the connections between grassroots downvotes/upvotes and systematic downvotes/upvotes from multiple sockpuppets.
I'd love to see that.