Without the downvote HN would descend into flame war bullshit pretty quickly (imo). Things that don't outright break the rules can still be low effort and subtl

Without the downvote HN would descend into flame war bullshit pretty quickly (imo). Things that don't outright break the rules can still be low effort and subtly hostile. Most heavily downvoted posts I see on here tend to be people transparently arguing in bad faith, or being unnecessarily rude in ways that aren't quite obvious enough to attract proper moderation. Sure sometimes it's just opinions that most people disagree with, but overall I think the downvote button is a positive force (and the comments are still there, you can judge for yourself if they were worth it). (If you want to see all the terrible comments that get posted, turn on the showdead option on your user profile. Otherwise you get an unrealistically sunny view of the quality of discourse here).