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I wholeheartedly disagree: 1) Spam should be flagged not downvoted. 2) On/Offtopic is about as subjective as you can get. Some of the most interesting comment

I wholeheartedly disagree: 1) Spam should be flagged not downvoted. 2) On/Offtopic is about as subjective as you can get. Some of the most interesting comments I've seen on HN were the ones that were non-obviously related to the post or were meta-comments, or even better, when an interesting conversation ran wild and flowed from topic to topic to topic. 3) Downvoting is being used more and more and more for uncommented disagreement. Don't believe me? Visit any thread here and see which posts are sitting at <=0 karma. I guarantee the vast vast majority of them will be 1) Humorous and on-topic (even if the humor is bad). 2) On topic but non-specifically disagreed with by somebody (who? nobody knows since no comments were probably provided).

jodrellblank 17y ago
How does your claim that any given comment was downvoted for disagreement backup your wider claim that downvoted comments were downvoted for disagreement? That's circular. > 1) Spam should be flagged not downvoted. Agree. > 2) On/Offtopic is about as subjective as you can get Roughly agree, except there are official guidelines from the HN HQ so it isn't completely subjective. > 3) Downvoting is being used more and more and more for uncommented disagreement. Maybe, but even if so I don't see it being a problem. HN isn't turning into an echo chamber because of it, HN has always been a self selected echo chamber, as are all self selected groups of people who choose to belong to a group focused on some area(s) of interest. > Don't believe me? Don't understand you.
- elblanco 17y ago
  > Roughly agree, except there are official guidelines from the HN HQ so it isn't completely subjective. This is true, but even within the guidelines, there is considerable room for topics. Some people seem to want to constrain that further to some smaller set of topics they are personally interested in by using the downvote. > Maybe, but even if so I don't see it being a problem. HN isn't turning into an echo chamber because of it, HN has always been a self selected echo chamber, as are all self selected groups of people who choose to belong to a group focused on some area(s) of interest. Self-selected, narrowly focused? Sure. But an echo chamber is not what we want, they are by definition, undesirable. > Don't understand you. I wasn't clear I guess. My point being is that posts that are off-topic and generally disagreeable are not the ones being downvoted because by and large we tend not to have those too much on HN. The ones that are being downvoted are the ones that are, on topic, but have some other characteristic that the downvote patrol doesn't want to see, such as humor or a dissenting or contradictory voice.

jodrellblank 17y ago

How does your claim that any given comment was downvoted for disagreement backup your wider claim that downvoted comments were downvoted for disagreement? That's circular. > 1) Spam should be flagged not downvoted. Agree. > 2) On/Offtopic is about as subjective as you can get Roughly agree, except there are official guidelines from the HN HQ so it isn't completely subjective. > 3) Downvoting is being used more and more and more for uncommented disagreement. Maybe, but even if so I don't see it being a problem. HN isn't turning into an echo chamber because of it, HN has always been a self selected echo chamber, as are all self selected groups of people who choose to belong to a group focused on some area(s) of interest. > Don't believe me? Don't understand you.

elblanco 17y ago
> Roughly agree, except there are official guidelines from the HN HQ so it isn't completely subjective. This is true, but even within the guidelines, there is considerable room for topics. Some people seem to want to constrain that further to some smaller set of topics they are personally interested in by using the downvote. > Maybe, but even if so I don't see it being a problem. HN isn't turning into an echo chamber because of it, HN has always been a self selected echo chamber, as are all self selected groups of people who choose to belong to a group focused on some area(s) of interest. Self-selected, narrowly focused? Sure. But an echo chamber is not what we want, they are by definition, undesirable. > Don't understand you. I wasn't clear I guess. My point being is that posts that are off-topic and generally disagreeable are not the ones being downvoted because by and large we tend not to have those too much on HN. The ones that are being downvoted are the ones that are, on topic, but have some other characteristic that the downvote patrol doesn't want to see, such as humor or a dissenting or contradictory voice.