HN's Karma score has partially helped me better understand myself in the social context. With time I've learned to realize which types of responses/opinions people generally prefer and how to word the same sentence so that it relates to people up to a point.
I'm the nerdy type, with some social mis-alignments and I don't often realize how I represent my opinions and it's hard to look at yourself from a 3rd perspective.
So Karma has actually helped me understand my place better. I'm not a Karma whore by any means but I really like paying attention to which responses work well and I even try to apply the same approach in every day life.
Another thing that has also helped me: Twitter. I actually believe I write better since I started using Twitter because I'm more used to cramming more information to a smaller amount of words.
That reminds me of what Conan O'Brien said about Twitter in his post-sack interview - that he felt it really honed his output, because he had to condense his jokes.
He referred to his own comment. He cannot upvote it.
Regarding down votes: some people click them because they disagree, some because they think the post may be irrelevant. Sometimes it is not clear which is the case.
I'm the nerdy type, with some social mis-alignments and I don't often realize how I represent my opinions and it's hard to look at yourself from a 3rd perspective.
So Karma has actually helped me understand my place better. I'm not a Karma whore by any means but I really like paying attention to which responses work well and I even try to apply the same approach in every day life.
Another thing that has also helped me: Twitter. I actually believe I write better since I started using Twitter because I'm more used to cramming more information to a smaller amount of words.
At least, that's how I see it.