I think you're greatly exaggerating the tendency of technical people to value accuracy and truth over personal opinions. ... * If I had sided with Samsung for

I think you're greatly exaggerating the tendency of technical people to value accuracy and truth over personal opinions. ... * If I had sided with Samsung for example, and spouted the popular (but wrong) opinion that the decision hurts innovation.* Irony. That aside, voting systems by design favor majority opinion. From the few stories that discuss it, the behind the scenes moderation that goes on here is likely the differentiating factor in comment quality from sites like reddit. The ability to down vote only after participating in the community for a while is just one of many heuristics for moderating the community.