It's because the amendment was never to authorize spying on browser history, it was an amendment to BLOCK it which was voted down for being a distraction and potentially limit FISA spying in other ways.
The only problem with this (and it is infuriating) is that while Chrome and Firefox render box positive box-shadow values identically, they differ substantially with negative values. As a result, to get matching shadows you will need to use browser-specific shadows.
I have almost a conditioned reflex for upvoting grey posts at this point. The people who downvote are a weird crew that don't seem to judge by Reddit's "contributes to the discussion" standard.
Reddit's standard seems to contribute more directly to quality discussion than the haphazard result of pg's opinion, authoritative though it may be.
When voting is applied with no real guidelines or standards, it ceases to be an effective filter for anything but the immediate emotional zeitgeist, and this goes against HN's stated purpose of bias towards quality.
Pretty much all of HN is the "haphazard result of pg's opinion", no? That is an interesting way to describe creating something. I see no reason to mess with how HN has always worked, at least not where there's no obvious problem.
I know people have strong feelings about downvotes, but those feelings are rooted in something other than discussion quality. Everything I think I know about how to keep HN from deteriorating too badly tells me that the downvotes here serve a critical purpose—even though they're a crude weapon with a lot of downside.
>I know people have strong feelings about downvoting, but those feelings are rooted in something other than discussion quality.
How do you know? People have different opinions about what constitutes and contributes to quality. From what I've seen, a lot of people assume Reddit's standard should apply here, and they seem surprised to learn that it doesn't. Those people do seem to be concerned about discussion quality.
>Everything I think I know about how to keep HN from deteriorating too badly tells me that the downvotes here serve a critical purpose—even though they're a crude and imprecise weapon, with a lot of downside.
Fine... but why is it wrong to have a standard for downvotes?
The argument being made here is that arbitrary and excessive downvotes are a symptom of deterioration.
Taking the last point first: HN downvotes aren't arbitrary and excessive. In most cases, not 99% but maybe 90 and certainly 80, it's easy to see why a comment has been downvoted—except when you agree with it on a topic that pushes your buttons, in which case you will always think the downvote was unfair, but then your opinion can't be trusted. (That applies to all us; we just have different buttons and agree with different things.)
That does leave a margin where the statistical vote cloud converges on a negative score unfairly. But how often does that really happen—maybe 10%? Once you account for the many factors of randomness, e.g. in who happens to see a comment, there's not much room left to make outcomes more precise. Certainly a feeble "rule change" wouldn't do it; if you think it would, try running an internet forum and telling users how to behave. You will quickly know how King Canute must have felt. We'd be better off hiring someone fair-minded to go through all the comments, find those 10%, and upvote them. But what a fate to subject a human being to.
> a symptom of deterioration
HN downvote behavior has been stable for a long time, so whatever's going on, I don't think it's deterioration. But if it is, then I go with what Voltaire said about coffee being a slow poison: it must be very slow.
> a lot of people assume Reddit's standard should apply here,
People assume Reddit's standards apply on HN because Reddit is so much bigger than HN, and therefore much better known even among HN users. This is a simple consequence of size. It has nothing to do with what Reddit's standards specifically are or how high its quality is. I respect Reddit—Reddit is an amazing achievement—but it is not where HN should be taking lessons in discussion quality.
> How do you know? People have different opinions about what constitutes and contributes to quality.
I don't know, but I'll tell you why I say it. The emotional dynamic in downvoting is very strong. It stings to get downvoted—it feels like you've been downvoted. It sucks for me as much as anybody. From observing this reaction in myself, and how people's statements about downvotes are connected to their feelings in thousands of cases, I believe that this emotional dynamic accounts for most of what people say on the topic. That's not a criticism; it's just how we are. But given that, it's easy to see how the common belief about downvotes arises: it's not that there was anything bad about my comment (impossible!)—it must rather be that some schmuck disagreed. Therefore, to make the world a better place, people shouldn't be allowed to downvote for disagreement. This is wishful thinking.
I can tell you for sure that, whatever beliefs we have about it, people overwhelmingly downvote based on how they feel about a comment, probably in the first 5 seconds. They're not following any "guidelines". Most don't even know what the guidelines are. It's just lizard-brain like/dislike. Suppose we changed the rules to ask users only to downvote under more refined conditions. Whose behavior would that modify? Not most people's—only that of the very most conscientious users. But those are precisely the users whose instincts should be trusted in the first place.
That is why I don't think we should set up such a rule: first, it's wishful thinking; second, no clear upside. And third, HN's origins are in a kind of counterintuitive minimalism that I think is worth something, and that it takes a certain stubbornness to preserve. Everyone disagrees with the specific acts of stubborn preservation, but somehow people end up liking, or like/hating, the sum it all adds up to.
The emotional dynamic in downvoting is very strong.c
Have you lot thought much about ways of reducing that, without changing the effect votes have on ordering? I subscribe to the 'emotional dynamic' theory of this and it seems like it's empirically testable without fiddling with the way the site much.
You've already done some things to reduce it; for instance, by not greying out your own comments when you've been downvoted. Since comment scores have lots of jitter, you could also smooth out the displayed score, or delay updates. There's almost no time-value to comment scores, but I'd bet most of the pain in a downvote is confined to ~15 minutes from the posting of the comment.
Just the obvious stuff - you've already done things like that for upvotes. If we stipulate that having a grey, minus-y comment is some heavy public shaming shit to lay on users, it seems reasonable to try to apply it more judiciously. Are there really five distinct levels comment badness, each with a specific level of illegibility that the poster, let alone everyone else needs to know about? Is a +0-2=-2 comment, or a +20-22=-2 comment really terrible enough for sitewide opprobrium? What would happen if comments just sat at 1 until they hit -4 or below? Or if, for the purposes of display, everyone started with an invisible bonus of N? Theese and similar seem simple (like all work to be done by others) to try without as much as telling anyone.
Weird is better than Reddit, which tends to downvote for political and groupthink reasons, but it's still weird. I usually can't tell why the downvoters are downvoting. Their downvoting doesn't match the comments, so I just see them as weird and apart from the general users.
This is really shady of Google to do, and the fact that they think that it's acceptable just shows how far we've come. "Don't be evil" apparently means "spy on people, censor based on politics, help dirtbags stuck in the 12th century treat women as property, and assist totalitarian regimes to stay in power and censor their populace".
Google is literally cartoonishly evil at this point. That slogan of theirs is an absolute joke.
> Well last night that violence unfolded in El Paso. Ron was unhurt. It wasn't life-threatening, but it was aggressive and violent. But what about the next time? Or the time after that?
This is the same shit you see from "Antifa" on the left, and it's abhorrent regardless of the source. To pretend that both sides aren't getting increasingly violent is to reject reality. This isn't a false equivalency situation; both left and right are being pushed into division.
> This isn't a false equivalency situation; both left and right are being pushed into division.
In this case, it is a false equivalency. At least in terms of Democrat and Republican.
Antifa is a fringe far-left group. They are not Democrats. They do not support Democrats. You don't see mainstream Democratic politicians supporting them.
The Republicans, on the other hand, have embraced the far-right fringe groups. You have the leader of the Republican party calling the press the "enemy of the people" and making jokes about attacking reporters.
This is one of those cases where both sides are not the same.
Antifa was started by far-left activists, but has support much closer to the center-left than the people that started it because it has a narrow focus that is fairly uncontroversial left of center and has mostly been fairly restrained, both in its methods and in maintaining focus without making Antifa about the extracurricular stances of it's core members.
I like to consider myself fairly far-left (at least as far as the Australian political spectrum goes)
But I still have no idea what "Antifa" actually stand for. Are they against Fascism? If so, I can get behind that. Nazism is a failed experiment and needs to be kept in the dustbin of history
All I know is right-wingers screech about "the left" and "antifa" while trying to defend being awful people
Antifa stands for anti-fascistic action. They don't just oppose fascism from the arm chair, they oppose it with violence where necessary, because they figure fascists use violence too. If not now, then certainly once they gain power, therefore use all means necessary to prevent that.
It's absolutely a case of the end justifying the means, and there's no doubt an anti-democratic aspect to it. It's driven by a fear for fascism and a perceived need to use extreme measures to stop it.
Some people argue that Antifa is itself fascist in a way, and if you consider how fascism uses (and stokes) fear for a common enemy to unite people in support of their ideology, there might be something to it. There's some very slippery slope there.
It seems fairly mainstream for Democrats to think people who advocate for a white ethno state ('the alt right') are everywhere, varying in their degree of support for violence towards the largely imaginary foes (who in reality could be anywhere from center left to center right).
The majority of the country have been polled and consistently agree with the President that the media is intentionally creating a divide and often lie to the people. Conservatives undoubtedly make up more of that number but both political sides clearly think along similar lines in this instance. This isn't a "fringe group" that hate the corporate media.
Subtlety: there are at least two groups who hate each other's corporate media. People at the Presidential rally(+) aren't going to denounce Fox as corporate media.
(+) is this a thing? Did all the other presidents do this?
I'd suggest the BBC are more balanced than most, so I'd suggest your comment here is close to being cut out false equivalency with a side of whataboutism as you can have on a topic that's talking about violence at Trump rallies specifically.
This article is about mindless violence towards the media that's displayed and documented at Trumps rallys. It's not about antifa.
I don't know what media outlet is to Antifa, that is Fox News to the Right. But I'd welcome a discussion on what we can do to encourage a more fair and balanced media and what we do to hold drunken louts like the gentleman in the article for abhorrent violence.
Have you seen how the media treated the MAGA kid? They painted a false narrative and all of Hollywood
and Twitter joined in unison to dox and character assassinate a high school kid who literally just stood there as he was getting harassed, called all sorts of names and having a drum shoved in his face.
But God forbid the kid smirk to ease the tension. What do we do to hold media accountable for painting false narratives and stoking the fires of tension, intentionally for hits and ratings?
There's an argument to be made that the "kid" in question did what he did completely knowingly. Nobody would knowingly wear a MAGA hat into a space like that unless they knew they wanted to cause trouble
Strange times when the woke left is arguing that someone deserved it because of what they were wearing...
The Covington case was naked woke hysteria, there is no way around it. Particularly because even after the details came out, people were still doubling down and making excuses for everyone else there.
The hat is the official merch of your current sitting president. The way it's treated as an overt symbol of hate is insane, and only makes stunts like "it's ok to be white" all the more poignant. Clearly it's not ok in the eyes of some, and vice versa, having colored skin can excuse harassment and racism.
> The hat is the official merch of your current sitting president. The way it's treated as an overt symbol of hate is insane
Why? Hatred (as in the speech the cameraman was filming) is the overt policy of the President.
The emperor isn't naked, he just has a really bad hat - but we have to point out what we see, no matter how many people are wanting to intimidate us into not seeing it.
This article is complete partisan spin that spills a lot of ink mentioning completely orthogonal criticisms of people and events entirely unrelated to the event that occurred at The Lincoln Memorial...not an abortion clinic.
Here's the 1.5 hour recording of the event so you don't have to sit through some selectively edited hack job:
Well, something that would improve HN for me is if you changed your username to something less disturbing to read. If everyone had names like that, the site would be ridiculous and unusable. I don't know what you were thinking. I'm not against swearing, in movies or real life, but there is a limit, and you seem to have crossed it there, totally unnecessarily. Apologies if the name is highly significant to you, but it isn't to anyone else, it's just something I'd rather not read. Thanks.
You were nothing less than polite in your remarks. I appreciate your (edit:) candour, you have absolutely nothing to apologise for.
My handle is significant to me, and AFAIK there's no way to change your handle on HN. Though being honest, even if I were given the chance, I probably wouldn't change it.
I'm unsure if there's a mechanic to block some one on HN but if it does, I'd recommend you use it in this instance. Apologies that I can't be of any further help.
Out of interest, why is there a limit? And what is that limit?
Also, would you change your username if I requested you to do so? (Perhaps I had a bad experience in the past which makes the word “Adam“ something I‘d rather not read)
Indymedia is a news outlet popular with the left. It's a long time since I read it, but I don't think they're anything like as loose with the facts as Fox News.
> This article is about mindless violence towards the media that's displayed and documented at Trumps rallys. It's not about antifa.
This is a single instance and it makes headlines. Antifa on the other hand have had dozens of large scale riots and targeted attacks but corporate media avoids painting them in a bad light. They're simply "protesters" rather than a mob.
> I don't know what media outlet is to Antifa, that is Fox News to the Right.
CNN is easily the most far-left news show. There's hundreds of videos on YouTube of the hoaxes, lies and biased news they've broadcast.
> But I'd welcome a discussion on what we can do to encourage a more fair and balanced media
There needs to be stronger anti-libel and anti-defamation laws. The lawsuits coming from the "MAGA kid" Nick Sandmann should a good barometer of whether or not the corporate media can truly be held accountable for their lies.
My guess at this point is that the media will continue to lose trust from the public because they can't ever be held accountable when they lie.
>Antifa on the other hand have had dozens of large scale riots and targeted attacks but corporate media avoids painting them in a bad light. They're simply "protesters" rather than a mob.
[citation needed]
>CNN is easily the most far-left news show. There's hundreds of videos on YouTube of the hoaxes, lies and biased news they've broadcast.
And there's videos of the Earth being flat, climate change being a "liberal hoax" and the Sandy Hook massacre being made up
If I might quote from an (at the time) controversial Sony ad "you can't believe everything you read on the internet, that's how World War 1 got started"
>There needs to be stronger anti-libel and anti-defamation laws. The lawsuits coming from the "MAGA kid" Nick Sandmann should a good barometer of whether or not the corporate media can truly be held accountable for their lies.
America is a very litigious society, compared to the rest of the world. I'd love to see the defense for the "MAGA kid" trying to explain that wearing that hat was not a deliberate act
You're not wrong; CNN is barely even left, let alone far left. I don't think a viewpoint can seriously be called "far left" without being explicitly opposed to capitalism. The farthest-left viewpoints you're likely to see on any of the mainstream cable news channels, even as objects of incredulity, are criticisms of underregulated capitalism and advocacy for expanded welfare programs.
I don't know how much real science can be done on a barrier island, we already know how these things work. Same reason you don't buy a house in a horseshoe bend on a river.
