You raise an important point. About a year ago, on a community website I run [1], I implemented a group moderation system like the one I described in this essay

You raise an important point. About a year ago, on a community website I run [1], I implemented a group moderation system like the one I described in this essay and it worked pretty much as described. However, there are certainly some cases of people voting against comments on the basis of disagreement rather than comment quality - which goes against the comment voting guidelines [2]. This issue does occasionally come up among regular commenters. Interestingly, simply pointing out that someone was downvoted for expressing an opinion that was unpopular rather than illegitimate seems at least partially to reverse the effect (unlike HN, users can change their vote after making it). Again, this seems to suggest that as community moderation becomes internalized as an important value, it becomes more effective at preserving quality discussion. [1] http://raisethehammer.org/ http://raisethehammer.org/ [2] http://raisethehammer.org/article/874/ http://raisethehammer.org/article/874/