Tangentially, joining lobste.rs is a pain. I once hung around on chat asking for an invite and then gave up. HN on the other hand makes signing up just a matter

Tangentially, joining lobste.rs is a pain. I once hung around on chat asking for an invite and then gave up. HN on the other hand makes signing up just a matter of seconds, and also has a better breadth of content (because it doesn't make one jump through hoops to sign up). Given this context, the choice between a site where downvoting with a reason is available and a site where downvoting doesn't provide anything more is quite clear at least to me.