One "feature" of HN that makes me not to vote is that you can't change your mind. On mobile devices, where it is very easy to hit the wrong arrow, I fall back to read-only mode.

What is the difference between convincing people to do something and convincing them not to do something? Both are the same thing: Convincing people to exhibit a desired behaviour.

Looking at the headline, the theme here is "dirty tricks". Evil intent. And while I agree that you can use dirty tricks to make people not do something they'd better do, I fail to see how the examples given by the GP speak of evil intent.

Heard of the Dead Man Test? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applied_behavior_analysis#Behav... "If a dead man can do it, it ain't behavior, and if a dead man can't do it, then it is behavior."