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There is something deeply wrong with the discourse on HN. I very often see comments like this one, politely expressing an opinion and bringing some reasoning to

There is something deeply wrong with the discourse on HN. I very often see comments like this one, politely expressing an opinion and bringing some reasoning to the table, get downvoted to oblivion or even flagged. Ironically, I see this happen the most to comments contradicting the common "liberal" wisdom, almost as if there's a liberal tendency to censor different opinions, even in cases like this one where they fit perfectly the current overton window. I genuinely feel that allowing users to downvote and flag is harming the quality of discussions here, as it's often used to reinforce an echo chamber, rather than to weed out spam and actually dangerous content.

bell-cot 2y ago
Yes, to a degree. Though that's another balancing act. Engaging (well) with people takes serious time & effort & emotional energy. Vs. downvoting takes ~1 second, and is trivial to do when you're in a bad mood. And it'd take even more time to look at a user's history here, to get a sense of whether they're a idiot/troll, a kid who's learning, someone with a developed but differing PoV, a good devil's advocate, or what. (And, for what I know, user FirmwareBurner might be a young German - whose own life was just ruined by German cuts to education and healthcare.) Arguably there should be some pretty-tight limits on downvoting & flagging. But I do those so little that I probably wouldn't know if there already were.
- ossobuco 2y ago
  I think downvotes shouldn't exist at all, since beside how easy it is to abuse them, they're redundant. The most correct/approved opinions will naturally float to the top thanks to upvotes, that's all that is needed for the purpose of a scoring system. Flagging should periodically be reviewed by moderators. If it turns out that someone used flagging as a censorship tool, that user should eventually be banned, perhaps after a few warnings.
  - viraptor 2y ago
    Try browsing with showdead. I regularly see comments which are just stupid. They're so bad they don't really deserve a discussion/answer since that would introduce lots of noise. But they're not abusive as such so can't be flagged. Downvotes do their job well a lot of the time.
    - ossobuco 2y ago
      > Try browsing with showdead. I regularly see comments which are just stupid I do, and yes, downvotes filter out noise but in the process also filter out unconforming opinions. Whether you prefer a "clean" but sterile environment over a noisier but more interesting one is a matter of taste, and I feel other users shouldn't be able to impose their taste on me. Being able to block users would be much more effective in terms of filtering noise and excluding censorship abuses.

bell-cot 2y ago

Yes, to a degree. Though that's another balancing act. Engaging (well) with people takes serious time & effort & emotional energy. Vs. downvoting takes ~1 second, and is trivial to do when you're in a bad mood. And it'd take even more time to look at a user's history here, to get a sense of whether they're a idiot/troll, a kid who's learning, someone with a developed but differing PoV, a good devil's advocate, or what. (And, for what I know, user FirmwareBurner might be a young German - whose own life was just ruined by German cuts to education and healthcare.) Arguably there should be some pretty-tight limits on downvoting & flagging. But I do those so little that I probably wouldn't know if there already were.

ossobuco 2y ago
I think downvotes shouldn't exist at all, since beside how easy it is to abuse them, they're redundant. The most correct/approved opinions will naturally float to the top thanks to upvotes, that's all that is needed for the purpose of a scoring system. Flagging should periodically be reviewed by moderators. If it turns out that someone used flagging as a censorship tool, that user should eventually be banned, perhaps after a few warnings.
- viraptor 2y ago
  Try browsing with showdead. I regularly see comments which are just stupid. They're so bad they don't really deserve a discussion/answer since that would introduce lots of noise. But they're not abusive as such so can't be flagged. Downvotes do their job well a lot of the time.
  - ossobuco 2y ago
    > Try browsing with showdead. I regularly see comments which are just stupid I do, and yes, downvotes filter out noise but in the process also filter out unconforming opinions. Whether you prefer a "clean" but sterile environment over a noisier but more interesting one is a matter of taste, and I feel other users shouldn't be able to impose their taste on me. Being able to block users would be much more effective in terms of filtering noise and excluding censorship abuses.