Downvotes which one feels are unwarranted are best considered editorial feedback. Take them as evidence that your writing did not match the expectations of the audience which received it. This may be due to misassumptions about the nature of the audience, or due to a miscommunication of the point one is trying to make. The solution to downvotes one feels are unwarranted is improving one's writing.
The point is that I am questioning what those expectations of the audience are. If you have read those threads, preferably in context, would you mind giving me your own personal judgement about whether or not my voice in those discussions is unwelcome or should be removed from the room? Particularly when set aside those comments of mine that were deemed to be welcome?
How could your posts have been better written?
Was their content thoughtful enough to be worth
submitting in the first place (or not deleting
after having been posted)?
Before posting the grandparent, I gave the links a cursory review. It was pretty clear that there was nothing outstandingly insightful about the comments. There was a bit of meanness, however. Their tone was a bit argumentative without being informative, as well.
All one can do is support their writing with effort and bounce back from mistakes and rejection as an author.
[Edit] I will add that comments do get systematically downvoted in a thread when someone disagrees. This morning, all my comments in this thread were downvoted by one, in a very short period of time. It is not unsurprising given what I compared and the entity I criticized. If I was certain I had never done the same thing, I might complain about it. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4864977 But I think I might have had a bad day, myself.
Granted, in both of 2 and 3, there's a likelihood of you being voted down because it's a story about an entrepreneurial guy doing well, and you disagreeing with the legitimacy of what he's doing. This is a very entrepreneurial forum, so there's a bias against that.
It's difficult for me to imagine anyone reading those threads and missing that conclusion. It seems to me that it is the primary driver.
The fact that you write "I agree with the broad points" doesn't change the fact that your comment disagrees with the broad point (that FizzBuzz is a good and useful test). Also, the bit you quote seems unrelated to your concerns. How do you disagree with the interpretation that 40% passed the test? Any interview situation is "for an audience" and stressful. Not testing actual coding (rather that talky-talky skill) is deeply unfair to those many talented coders who are not great sales people.
For two and three, the comments are still not good ones, they're just further being ill-considered because of the bias. There are plenty of good comments that go against the bias of this site, but still get upvotes, because they're good.
The broad point of the article was that FizzBuzz (still) reveals an amazing number of unqualified applicants. "Why, look what happens when we do FizzBuzz... You should too."
I did not disagree that FizzBuzz does that very thing. My objection was this: "Only 40% of programmers could correctly write out a FizzBuzz program on paper during our timed test in the middle of a job interview" is not equivalent to "Only 40% of applicants even have the skill to code FizzBuzz." The difference between the two is vital in a way many people here don't see, or at least won't acknowledge. That was the subject of my comment.
Maybe entrepreneurial types are fundamentally more at ease with that kind of thing than coders who aren't wired that way. I don't know how to enable you to see into that blind spot. I could try, in a meaningful back-and-forth with those who disagree with me. But to simply dismiss my initial objection outright, as something that doesn't even belong in the conversation? To employ HN moderation that sidelines it so it won't be seen? That leaves nowhere to begin.
I value being able to argue with intelligent, tech-minded people who disagree with me. It matters so much to me that there be an online venue like HN to meet unfamiliar points of view, to test my own biases, to figure out how I actually see things by engaging in meaningful debate. But we can't have such a low tolerance for disagreement and for challenges to biases that a whiff of a problem with someone's tone makes that person's words seem "mean." We can't be so quick to silence people at square one just because we don't (yet) see their point.
Please believe me that this is sincere and not pedantic. I just want to be clear: When you compare the first set of three comments above with the second, you really see the first as more valuable to HN than the second? Let's agree that no submission or comment is going to be all bad or all good and that we won't quibble about details. On balance, you would say the second set is unwelcome when compared with the first?
OK. You made that point very poorly. I only understood that now. Also, I disagree, but that's offtopic here.
You were not downvoted because you made an unpopular point, or because people disagrees with you. You weren't "silenced". Understand that. There is an extremely high tolerance for disagreement here, but it has to be well phrased and well argued.
You were downvoted because you made your point very poorly, so it read like an argumentation-void grasping at a strawman. I'm completely willing to accept that wasn't how you meant it to come out, but it's your responsibility, and only yours, that your comment comes across as intended.
I never responded to the first three comments - they were upvoted because you hit a popular vein in that particular discussion. That's pretty common. By the way, here's one for challenging the bias on this site: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4827567 - it's got 53 points. It's not a particular well written or insightful comment, it's a fairly trivial anecdote that happens to contain the magic word "YC". It's probably one of my all-time highest scoring comments, to think that means it's the best depresses me. A lot.
1 (FizzBuzz): You're responding to a strawman ("unrealistic audition programming for a live audience") and dismissing, rather than responding to the very point the article makes at great length ("Perhaps the hiring pool really is that bad"). I wouldn't have voted it down, but it's honestly not much of a value-add.
2 (Craigslist middleman): Again, I wouldn't have downvoted, but you're being assertive for one side in the debate without backing your assertion by reasoning or arguments. Also, it might just be me, but I catch a whiff of aggression in your comment.
3 (same thread): You're aggressive and you're asserting that some nefarious secrecy is going on, when no-one else has claimed that.
Granted, in both of 2 and 3, there's a likelihood of you being voted down because it's a story about an entrepreneurial guy doing well, and you disagreeing with the legitimacy of what he's doing. This is a very entrepreneurial forum, so there's a bias against that.