Own opinion. Does it exist or is it a myth?

Question

Habr

I always suspected that the majority of Habr users put minuses / pluses on a majority basis. That is: the commentary has a lot of minuses, but why am I worse? - I'll post it too!

I recently did a "research" with a friend. He (karma does not allow me), in large topics, put minuses (only 4 pieces were put in the total score) to comments with a zero rating (comments were specially chosen that have absolutely nothing to minus for). Bottom line: one comment remained shining with its "-1", one comment went to -5, the other two went into a deep minus (beyond -15).

So, tell me, is it really that the overwhelming majority have completely atrophied their own opinion? Does everything really happen according to the principle: I scroll through the comments, I see something red - I minus, I see something green - I upvote. To be honest, it seemed to me that experienced adults gathered here, and not hipsters.

Explain to me why this is happening?)

PS: to all users affected by minuses, we raised karma and upvoted their topics with comments on the number of minuses

Answer 1

Own opinion on Habré exists. But those who have it cannot put pros and cons.

Answer 2

I think so. When there are a lot of comments, there is no opportunity and desire to read everything, therefore they are often guided by the assessment of others and read what is upvoted, as an indicator of the importance of the comment, and what is downvoted, in order to find out what nonsense they wrote. Therefore, we can conclude that comments marked with an assessment (any) are simply read more often and, as a result, they either ignore or confirm the opinion of others, well, and here is the already mentioned “Ash Experiment”.

Answer 3

Exist. In my profile, for example, almost 1300 habrausers were noted, while karma is zero. I think I have reached the perfect balance. True, I stopped expressing my opinion on Habré a long time ago, because. according to my observation, they stopped appreciating this here a long time ago (about two years ago), succumbing to conformism, which, as a rule, is characteristic of immature personalities (more often this indicates the teenage age of the participants).
Because I've been on Habré for 5 years almost every day, then I know what I'm talking about.

Answer 4

You just discovered one of the oldest ways to manipulate public opinion :)

Answer 5

It is even more interesting to watch when someone downvotes ALL your comments to the article, regardless of what is written in them. Just such a "walk of hatred" for a specific person :-) People are different, you need to treat such things philosophically. :-)

Answer 6

Perhaps here, too, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_Law is observed - 20% act deliberately, 80% follow public opinion. And this is only observed on average. In one case, a person can act consciously, and in the other, succumb to the opinions of others. The human psyche is a very strange thing.

Answer 7

Damn, and I specifically pull out comments from the minuses, because I have already cleared this chip for a long time. -1 or -2 can still be pulled out, and then nothing can be done. Even the most harmless comments fly away into minuses.
And yes, I put a minus in karma for only one Kremlinbot. I'm trying to add.

Answer 8

Ah_here_you_where_I_have_looked_for_you_for a long time.jpg
And it happens because the pros and cons on Habré sometimes have nothing to do with opinion, but perform a different function: research like you have, trolling, compensation for some personal psychological problems. In addition, a minus can be put by inertia or carelessness.

Answer 9

Ash experiment.

Answer 10

Just why not hide all these “manipulators” from users?) How is it done, for example, in the ratings of topics ...
So that neither in the comments, nor anywhere else, the rating is shown BEFORE you vote yourself. But wouldn't it be a problem then to poke + or - without looking, just to see the result?)

Answer 11

One thing pleases, such as deadkrolik still IS)) If I could, I would put +1

Answer 12

4 people already lowered their karma because of this question ... Predictably :)

Answer 13

On Habré, a stupid rating and karma system. Minus equals plus. And this is more than stupid, because a person puts a negative review (that is, a minus) with much more willingness than a positive one. Here, for example, on SO - a minus subtracts 2 points, plus adds 10. It's very cool to write 2-3 topics and merge everything that was received in one or two comments :)
By the way, you turned down the "overwhelming majority". I believe that the vast majority do not vote at all.

Answer 14

There is such. IMHO this is a flaw in the voting algorithm.
I once wrote a support with a proposal to make the weight of the vote of both karma and comments / topics weighted relative to the person's tendency to downvote / upvote, i.e. for minus people to make a low minus weight and a high plus - for altruists, on the contrary.
He proposed to reduce the weight of "personal dislike", i.e. Decrease vote weight if the person has recently voted on a specific person's comments.
He proposed to move the voting button to karma immediately in the comment, so that there was no need to go to the user's account.
To all this, I was told that the system is already so complicated, and there is nothing to touch it.

Answer 15

Special fun is now in the topic about paranoia and surveillance of users by special services.
To my comment about the fact that I don’t care if they follow me or not, I won’t send anything serious and important in the mail, I took a bunch of minuses.

Answer 16

An illustrative example of inadequacy, I got -1 in karma for a comment a little higher))
Once again I am convinced that turboNOMAD's answer is absolutely correct. Good luck to everyone here in the difficult struggle, because. to teach how to use your opinion - no, it's easier to make a man out of a monkey. The saying “how the truth hurts the eyes” comes to mind.

Answer 17

A good way to avoid the influence of public opinion can be a script that hides the karma and rating indicators. This approach will need to be tested.