> down-votes for disagreement rather than lack of content The debate about downvotes for disagreement rather than lack of content has been going on here for y

> down-votes for disagreement rather than lack of content The debate about downvotes for disagreement rather than lack of content has been going on here for years. For me, it's as clear as day that this is getting much, much better. From about 2012 to early 2014, there was some type of either bot or some very, very eager HNers who would rapidly downvote topics they didn't like, 3-4 downvotes within the first 5 minutes, even if it was a quality comment. I would regularly upvote comments even though I vehemently disagreed with the commenter just to offset those downvotes. I find myself having to do that much, much less now. It is clear that HN is getting more "traditionally" polite as well as what many would consider politically correct, so if that pisses you off then I can definitely see how the site would seem to be worse. But I strongly, strongly disagree with the Reddit thing. By the way, take a look at the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html It says: "If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a common semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills." If I'm not mistaken, that guideline has been in place since I got here back in 2010-2011 or so, so that should tell you something. People have been complaining about Reddit-like comments on HN since at least back then. (As as you will have noted, people are quick to downvote comments saying HN is becoming Reddit for this very reason)