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> pg has said many times that it's OK to downvote out of disagreement (particularly since it's OK to upvote due to agreement.) What value does this provide to

> pg has said many times that it's OK to downvote out of disagreement (particularly since it's OK to upvote due to agreement.) What value does this provide to the reader? Community groupthink is not strongly related to truth, IMHO, and provides little marginal value, because I already know what it is and it's easy to find. In fact, I wouldn't read HN if all I found was the groupthink -- I gain far more from new or challenging ideas. EDIT: When Amy up/downvotes, it is for the benefit of Bob and other readers. Amy receives little benefit besides maybe a little emotional satisfaction. If the vote mainly was for Amy's benefit, HN wouldn't need her vote to impact anyone else's threads -- we all could have personalized, independent scores for each comment. What benefit do I, Bob, receive if Amy is just voting on what she agrees/disagrees with?

Crito 12y ago
Downvoting because you disagree provides the exact same benefit to the reader that upvoting because you agree provides. "Downvotes aren't for disagreeing" is an absurd redditism. > "Community groupthink is not strongly related to truth" In strongly technical discussions, which are common on HN and which HN should be optimized for, "groupthink" and "correct" tend to correlate quite nicely. Whenever there is a concrete notion of "correct", it works well. It is only when "correct" becomes subjective (such as in political discussions) that shit gets messy.
baddox 12y ago
> Community groupthink is not strongly related to truth, IMHO, and provides little marginal value, because I already know what it is and it's easy to find. In other words, downvote and upvote according to what you think those actions mean.