>The reason that this comes up so often is that HN is a much larger and more diverse community than it seems. I agree with what you're saying, and appreciate t

>The reason that this comes up so often is that HN is a much larger and more diverse community than it seems. I agree with what you're saying, and appreciate the point, but there's a practical basis to the frustration as well: Sometimes seemingly banal comments are down-voted with no explanation or reply, and this starts the "You're posting too fast" chain, and next thing you know any slightly contrarian view (which, apparently, I hold in spades) is prevented from being presented. (It's literally happening to me as I attempted to post this comment). If people want to down-vote, that's their prerogative; I'm not interested in accumulating points. But the mechanism of throttling people with down-voted comments contributes to an echo chamber, even if it serves a higher purpose. I've been hanging around here for a long time, and it feels like it's gotten a lot worse, especially for someone on the less common side of the political spectrum. It's hard to participate sometimes. I realize even the discussion of voting is against guidelines, and I have no solution, so I'll bow out. I appreciate the thoughtful reply.