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> I haven't seen as many interesting back and forth discussions on HN for a long time. There are probably a lot of different factors behind that but the rise of

> I haven't seen as many interesting back and forth discussions on HN for a long time. There are probably a lot of different factors behind that but the rise of downvoting as a means of disagreeing with a comment hasn't helped. There are a few topics I happen to know quite a lot about (e.g. health economics), and I generally enjoy discussing them with people in real life. I've long since given up on being able to discuss them on HN, however, because it's really demoralizing to write a 1000-word comment with five footnote citations explaining the nuances of the health insurance billing system and labor supply market, only to get downvoted within 30 seconds by people who (presumably) don't like that my comments don't perfectly support their opinions. Rinse and repeat throughout an entire discussion thread. So instead, on these topics where I know I'll inevitably get downvoted, I just write a single comment, much shorter, and oftentimes without citations. If people respond, I often don't bother to reply. It's not that I dislike debating, or that I dislike debating this topic. But it's a waste of my time to keep writing comments only to get (virtually) slapped in the face every time I hit "submit". There are other users I've noticed who have followed similar patterns. Which is a shame, because I've learned a lot from them in the past.

nkurz 11y ago
Perhaps you've stopped writing them, but I still associate your username with high quality comments. Try not to care too much about the random downvotes, and please keep writing extensive well-footnoted comments about the issues you care about. It's probably a small audience, but we are appreciative.
- jccc 11y ago
  The problem with that is that you can't not care about them if you care about meaningful debate and conversation. The effect of downvotes is to push comments down and fade them away into the background. That should be the effect of filtering low-quality comments, but why should that be the effect of disagreement?
  - jccc 11y ago
    More to the point, is it not to your benefit to encounter and engage with quality points of view that differ from your own?
    - nkurz 11y ago
      Certainly, and one can still benefit if the comment is slightly grayed out and lower on the page. I'm suggesting that allowing the asocial behavior of small number of random strangers to ruin your day is likely to result in lots of ruined days. Better, if you can mentally arrange it, is to treat some small number of downvotes as the price of admission rather than a personal attack, and to continue the conversation with those who are listening. The hard part is figuring out which downvotes are actually useful feedback, and which should be treated as random noise. This wasn't my point above, though. My point was that I like chimeracoder's long detailed comments, and would like him to keep writing them, regardless of the behavior he observes in others.

nkurz 11y ago

Perhaps you've stopped writing them, but I still associate your username with high quality comments. Try not to care too much about the random downvotes, and please keep writing extensive well-footnoted comments about the issues you care about. It's probably a small audience, but we are appreciative.

jccc 11y ago
The problem with that is that you can't not care about them if you care about meaningful debate and conversation. The effect of downvotes is to push comments down and fade them away into the background. That should be the effect of filtering low-quality comments, but why should that be the effect of disagreement?
- jccc 11y ago
  More to the point, is it not to your benefit to encounter and engage with quality points of view that differ from your own?
  - nkurz 11y ago
    Certainly, and one can still benefit if the comment is slightly grayed out and lower on the page. I'm suggesting that allowing the asocial behavior of small number of random strangers to ruin your day is likely to result in lots of ruined days. Better, if you can mentally arrange it, is to treat some small number of downvotes as the price of admission rather than a personal attack, and to continue the conversation with those who are listening. The hard part is figuring out which downvotes are actually useful feedback, and which should be treated as random noise. This wasn't my point above, though. My point was that I like chimeracoder's long detailed comments, and would like him to keep writing them, regardless of the behavior he observes in others.