Vote-piling is so obvious on Reddit but it's more than that.
On a personal level, even when the numbers are hidden from the public like on HN, it has a weird effect on me. It's nice to post something and get a bunch of upvotes, but (even though it doesn't really matter) just getting that single point drop to zero hurts so much more. I don't know if it's loss aversion or the idea that some random internet person dislikes me. I don't dwell on it, I'm notice it and move on, but I still get that little sinking feeling for some reason.
Over time, just like a dog being trained we'll learn to conform to the consensus.
Yeah I don’t really understand downvoting on HN. If I see a grey post that looks well written and making reasonable arguments, I like to upvote. If people want to disagree they should reply rather than downvote.
Edit: I don’t mean all down voting is bad - It’s good when people start making personal attacks - but just as often it seems to be used to suppress an unpopular viewpoint.
It's pretty funny that I will a huge number of votes for a trivial factual correction and get no votes for what I'd consider insightful points. Not showing votes makes it easy for everyone to upvote these trivial factual corrections.
I think one reason for a vote is when someone was going to say something, but someone else already did so it's redundant to say it again - vote instead to show approval to the poster, or add weight to it where votes are public. It makes sense that simple corrections would so often fall into this category.
On a personal level, even when the numbers are hidden from the public like on HN, it has a weird effect on me. It's nice to post something and get a bunch of upvotes, but (even though it doesn't really matter) just getting that single point drop to zero hurts so much more. I don't know if it's loss aversion or the idea that some random internet person dislikes me. I don't dwell on it, I'm notice it and move on, but I still get that little sinking feeling for some reason.
Over time, just like a dog being trained we'll learn to conform to the consensus.