I'm not sure that stands up. 'Votes' are always positive feedback to the one on the receiving end. Assuming HN (or Reddit, or whatever) successfully filters bot

I'm not sure that stands up. 'Votes' are always positive feedback to the one on the receiving end. Assuming HN (or Reddit, or whatever) successfully filters bot activity, they provide indication that there are people in the vicinity of the comment and therefore it is likely that the comment is being read. Which is the reason why one comes to a forum and not to a private journal. As there is no formal analytics system, getting feedback (button presses, replies, etc.) is the only way to know you are contributing something that a larger community is taking in. And such feedback is what encourages contributing more. If there was something that the community doesn't like, naturally they would hide the fact that a community exist. No votes, no replies, no nothing. When one feels like they are simply writing in a private journal, they will grow bored of their activity pretty quickly. As the old adage goes: Don't feed the trolls.