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Comment by hendavid | Hacker News Reader

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hendavid

First post!

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You are being downvoted, because your comment does not add anything worthwhile to the discuss/topic.

Kindly read the the community guidelines at http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You may also find http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html by Paul Graham useful.

He crated that account about a minute before making that post, and likely never had any intention of using it again. (Or in other words, don't worry about it, and let moderation do its thing ;)

May be so. However, Because of the fact that he is a newbie in the community, and not a spammer/troll, I'd like to give him the benefit of doubt.

Having a barrage of downvotes, just because you dint know the rules when you are new, without any explanation is not helpful (and slightly unfair and discouraging).

Fair enough, but as I recall HN barrages you with the rules as you join.

Oh.. I remember the opposite actually. (No mention of guidelines), when you join.

Karma is currently at -18... lesson learned.

<edit> Touchy tonight are we? I was just pointing out that it might not be in the best interest to downvote someone into oblivion on one of their first posts to Hacker News. With the green names indicating new people, we have the ability to show them the right way without killing his karma and motivation to post here. Random42 pointed him in the right direction...

  > it might not be in the best interest to downvote someone
  > into oblivion on one of their first posts to Hacker News

I disagree. If someone doesn't have the courtesy to try and understand the community they are participating in before they participate, lowering an arbitrary number associated with their username is hardly any kind of punishment. The only impact it has on the user is that they now have to earn back points on their arbitrary number. If it also bans them from posting for a while, even better.

Thank you for being the first person who downvoted me (assuming) and writing why you disagree. I come from idea that this person wanted to join Hacker News; didn't understand the community; didn't find the rules and regulations right away; and has been scared away from the community by crazy downvotes.

How many downvotes does it take to kill a comment? This person is forever lost to Hacker News...

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