{"by":"jacquesm","dead":true,"descendants":12,"id":1030732,"kids":[1030779,1030760,1030995,1030997,1030996,1030828,1030938],"score":10,"text":"If you're not one of the silly downmodders you can stop reading here, but if you are please continue.<p>There is a trend that people tend to use the downmod option as a way to harass others or to express their personal disagreement.<p>You have to be aware though that you are probably actually <i>giving</i> points to the person that you've modded down.<p>Here is how it works:<p>Let's say a comment is at 1 point, and you mod it down to 0. After you lots of other people will load that page with the downmodded comment.<p>They'll all look at the comment, realize that some jerk modded it down for no good reason and they'll <i>all</i> mod it up.<p>So your -1 will turn into a +4.<p>I've seen this happen plenty of times now and I thought it worth telling you about the inadvertent result of your actions.<p>If you thought about it a bit longer you'd realize that the best way to show your discontent is to simply use the 'reply' option and state your reasons for disagreeing.<p>Then those 4 people that come after you will not mod up the comment you are replying to because of your undoubtedly great insight, in fact, they might mod you up and the person you are replying to down to express their agreement with you.","time":1262627083,"title":"Tell HN: I've got the anti-dote for the silly downmodders","type":"story","url":""}