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These comments are a useful tool for confirming the dominant bias of the HN community. It is frustrating to see smart people downvoting intelligent observatio
by DaniloDias 6y ago
These comments are a useful tool for confirming the dominant bias of the HN community. It is frustrating to see smart people downvoting intelligent observations because they would be miserable if the observations came to pass. The downvote button should not be an indicator of your personal annoyance.
- gguevaraa 6y agoI'd argue HN shouldn't have a downvote button at all. I can understand when using it to downvote misinformation or comments that break guidelines, however, in discussions it often is used to quietly say "I don't like your opinion, period". Then again, not having a downvote button would probably lead to more flamewars but I'm just speculating. It's a shame seeing Reddit-like behavior on HN (I understand comparing HN to Reddit is blaspheme).
- 0xy 6y agoNearly 100% of the time I've seen "dead" comments, it's because they said something that goes against the grain. This feature is pretty much pure abuse by power users. Same for downvotes.
- pfarrell 6y agoAgreed. The downvote should be used to indicate a comment is off topic or doesn’t add to the discussion, not whether it aligns with your opinion. In this particular case, however, I’d agree it’s off topic (but I personally didn’t downvote it because it’s not that out of bounds).