Dude. I was the one who downvoted you, and here’s why:
1) You replied to a troll
2) It was a very old troll
3) You did not say anything new or interesting
4) I think “Yay EY” is the kind of thing we want to stay away from, and anyway I’m a contrarian so I reflexively dislike it
5) I don’t like that we even have a list of mostly-unfunny Chuck Norris jokes about EY, and I don’t like seeing it pop up in recent comments
It was just one downvote. Everyone gets ’em; I’ll probably get several here. No need to go into your “This demonstrates my superior rationality!” failure mode over it.
I wish you had added “in my opinion” to this sentence. Because I thought my comment was new and interesting: I took a trollish comment and turned it into a legitimate element of the list—thereby creating irony, which is interesting. Moreover, the particular list element that resulted—“EY is a high school dropout with no formal education in anything, and yet people write lists like this about him”—is distinguished from nearly all the others in being (almost) true, which makes it even more interesting.
Naturally, I don’t expect you to agree, given your opinions as expressed above. However, simply saying “you did not say anything new or interesting”, as if it were a fact beyond dispute, makes it sound like it should have been obvious to me that it wasn’t interesting, which is kind of a rude thing to suggest, given the fact that I actually thought it was interesting, and had a reasonable rationale for thinking so, as explained above. Indeed, given that you realize that you are a contrarian in disliking the post, I should rather have expected you to anticipate that not only I but also a fair number of other readers would have a different evaluation of my comment.
Furthermore:
I don’t like seeing [this post] pop up in recent comments
I do not consider this to be a legitimate reason for downvoting a comment; comments should be evaluated on their own merits, and not on those of the post to which they are attached.
Finally, despite the fact that I appreciate this comment explaining your reasons for downvoting—which, as you can see, I did not interpret correctly, something you should consider the next time you want to communicate a message with an unexplained vote—I do not appreciate this remark:
No need to go into your “This demonstrates my superior rationality!” failure mode over it.
I do not consider my comments here to represent either a failure mode or a demonstration of superior rationality.
I do not consider this to be a legitimate reason for downvoting a comment; comments should be evaluated on their own merits, and not on those of the post to which they are attached.
I’m not prepared to defend it as legitimate, but it was a factor in my decision to downvote, and I was trying to be reasonably honest.
Please note that I really don’t like talking about karma like it’s important, and this dialogue, qua dialogue, is now over.
Dude. I was the one who downvoted you, and here’s why: 1) You replied to a troll 2) It was a very old troll 3) You did not say anything new or interesting 4) I think “Yay EY” is the kind of thing we want to stay away from, and anyway I’m a contrarian so I reflexively dislike it 5) I don’t like that we even have a list of mostly-unfunny Chuck Norris jokes about EY, and I don’t like seeing it pop up in recent comments
It was just one downvote. Everyone gets ’em; I’ll probably get several here. No need to go into your “This demonstrates my superior rationality!” failure mode over it.
Thank you for explaining. However:
I wish you had added “in my opinion” to this sentence. Because I thought my comment was new and interesting: I took a trollish comment and turned it into a legitimate element of the list—thereby creating irony, which is interesting. Moreover, the particular list element that resulted—“EY is a high school dropout with no formal education in anything, and yet people write lists like this about him”—is distinguished from nearly all the others in being (almost) true, which makes it even more interesting.
Naturally, I don’t expect you to agree, given your opinions as expressed above. However, simply saying “you did not say anything new or interesting”, as if it were a fact beyond dispute, makes it sound like it should have been obvious to me that it wasn’t interesting, which is kind of a rude thing to suggest, given the fact that I actually thought it was interesting, and had a reasonable rationale for thinking so, as explained above. Indeed, given that you realize that you are a contrarian in disliking the post, I should rather have expected you to anticipate that not only I but also a fair number of other readers would have a different evaluation of my comment.
Furthermore:
I do not consider this to be a legitimate reason for downvoting a comment; comments should be evaluated on their own merits, and not on those of the post to which they are attached.
Finally, despite the fact that I appreciate this comment explaining your reasons for downvoting—which, as you can see, I did not interpret correctly, something you should consider the next time you want to communicate a message with an unexplained vote—I do not appreciate this remark:
I do not consider my comments here to represent either a failure mode or a demonstration of superior rationality.
I’m not prepared to defend it as legitimate, but it was a factor in my decision to downvote, and I was trying to be reasonably honest.
Please note that I really don’t like talking about karma like it’s important, and this dialogue, qua dialogue, is now over.