I just hope Karma on HN is just not a function of how cool, popular or otherwise consensual you are and that people like myself can stay on and bloom with diffe

I just hope Karma on HN is just not a function of how cool, popular or otherwise consensual you are and that people like myself can stay on and bloom with differing styles and views from the majority You can search and find plenty of examples of people who have become dissatisfied with the way that Hacker News has gone downhill from where it was a few months or years ago. There has been a tendency in recent months to downvote people who disagree with you, or point out flaws in your logic. Just last year, you would only see downvotes for Digg-style zingers or insensitive comments. Nowadays, you'll get downvoted for persuasive arguments just because people don't agree with you. And there's no humor at all allowed anymore. Just the same old stories day after day (look what Apple announced, look what Arrington said, Rate My Startup, How can I scale my app, should I learn Ruby?), and a lot of people arguing about who said what about startups instead of actually starting companies. I think it's time I started reading HN less and coding more...at least my commits don't get downvoted.