Comment by csomar
7 years ago
> I’ll never understand why obvious marketing makes it to the front page, only to get shat upon by 95% of the comments.
Upvote manipulation maybe? Then once it is on the front-page it gets lots of exposure. So the probability to get upvoted becomes higher.
It's another clever feature of Hacker News, in my book.
Perhaps YCombinator omitted the downvote button because it can be abused. For example, if there is a story that is bad news for a certain company, that company could organize a downvoting campaign to hide it. But the upvote button can also be manipulated, as you say.
However, which is worse? (A) To write a silly story and have it rightfully downvoted into obscurity, or (B) To write a silly story, have it upvoted into the limelight, but be littered with comments that expose its flaws.
I think that as long as I remember that just because a story is on the front page doesn't mean it's right, then Hacker News has a nicely curated set of moderation rules.
>For example, if there is a story that is bad news for a certain company, that company could organize a downvoting campaign to hide it.
That's how story flagging currently works though, and is significantly more effective