I don't think the intention is "specific votes" as in an editor cherry-picked particular users to ignore. Rather, I think they are trying to code logic that will recognize patterns of behavior and ignore users that exhibit that behavior. That is tricky stuff, and it's going to get a lot of false positives until they settle on an acceptable set of rules.
You're really not giving PG and whoever else develops the HN code the benefit of the doubt.
> I don't think the intention is "specific votes" as in an
> editor cherry-picked particular users to ignore.
I'm sure that's true. They write complex code that tries to identify deprecated behaviours, and then take action based on that. No doubt I could've expressed that point to better reflect what I think. I will look at going back and editing the phrasing - thank you.
> Rather, I think they are trying to code logic that will
> recognize patterns of behavior and ignore users that
> exhibit that behavior.
Most likely, yes.
> That is tricky stuff, and it's going to get a lot of false
> positives until they settle on an acceptable set of rules.
Yes, and no. Yes it's tricky, and yes there will be false positives, but the rate depends on how aggressive they try to be.
> You're really not giving PG and whoever else develops the
> HN code the benefit of the doubt.
I suspect I'm giving them more credit than you give me credit for. This is the sort of thing at which I earn my living, and I really do know how hard automated behavioural analysis can be. I also know that behaviour modification works best when the reinforcement is strongly attached to the behaviour. The problem here is that I have no idea what I've done to have my voting privileges revoked, and that is counter-productive.
You're really not giving PG and whoever else develops the HN code the benefit of the doubt.