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HN's downvote mechanism is a funny one. As far as I know there's no clear meaning to what a downvote means and it seems like everyone has their own definition.

HN's downvote mechanism is a funny one. As far as I know there's no clear meaning to what a downvote means and it seems like everyone has their own definition. For some, downvoting is a way of "flagging" out of place comments, aggressive ones, etc. However for others it's just a way of disagreeing. The guidelines don't seem to establish any particular definition to it, so it's kind of a community-driven thing. At first I was certain that downvoting was a way for the crowd to silence unwanted comments, but "unwanted" has many values depending on the person. Personally, I prefer to downvote when there are clearly aggressive or out-of-place comments, and if I disagree I rather respond with my disagreement. That's the way to have a civil discussion in my opinion. However, like I said, other people give downvoting a different meaning, so it's not so much that you can't criticize famous celebrities, but that the community seems to disagree with you. I don't see anything "flaggable" about your post so that's why I assume it's the reason. But again, downvoting is an "undefined" behavior in HN. Guidelines don't mention what shoul or should not be downvoted so it's kind of up for debate. Don't worry too much about it, as long as you are not clearly being uncivil, downvotes are probably just a lazy way of saying "I don't agree with you" :)

optimusclimb 9y ago
imho this isn't specific to HN, Reddit is plagued by "downvote to disagree." Downvoting should be for, as you said, flagging aggressive, off-topic comments. I've really lost interest in commenting on reddit, because if you say anything that disagrees with or goes against a certain sub-reddits current group think on a subject, you're just going to get downvoted into oblivion. It really just intensifies the echo-chamber effect.
- dingo_bat 9y ago
  Do you think upvoting something you agree with is a valid action? If yes, does it not follow that downvote to disagree is also valid?
  - JdeBP 9y ago
    You need to observe that the asymmetry is built into Hacker News itself, thereby contradicting the hypothesis that these are supposed to be symmetric actions. There is, now, no longer a downvote button against your comment here, for example; there is still an upvote button, though.

optimusclimb 9y ago

imho this isn't specific to HN, Reddit is plagued by "downvote to disagree." Downvoting should be for, as you said, flagging aggressive, off-topic comments. I've really lost interest in commenting on reddit, because if you say anything that disagrees with or goes against a certain sub-reddits current group think on a subject, you're just going to get downvoted into oblivion. It really just intensifies the echo-chamber effect.

dingo_bat 9y ago
Do you think upvoting something you agree with is a valid action? If yes, does it not follow that downvote to disagree is also valid?
- JdeBP 9y ago
  You need to observe that the asymmetry is built into Hacker News itself, thereby contradicting the hypothesis that these are supposed to be symmetric actions. There is, now, no longer a downvote button against your comment here, for example; there is still an upvote button, though.