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I'd agree that down-voting has become more prevalent and is unfortunately often used to show disagreement. I think one problem is that HN is likely acquiring a
by brd 12y ago
I'd agree that down-voting has become more prevalent and is unfortunately often used to show disagreement. I think one problem is that HN is likely acquiring a lot of redditors where votes in general are not nearly as meaningful (especially down-votes).
Reddit is, in my opinion, a place mostly for fluff (humor, pop culture content, etc) while HN is a place we seek out for information and discussion. Disagreement only down-votes definitely suppress discussion so I'm all for seeing HN experiment with curbing down-vote usage.
I could see "controversial down-votes" being an interesting method for identifying people abusing their down-vote privilege. If a comment gets a mix of up-votes and down-votes its likely that the down-votes are disagreement driven so that could be an easy place to start.
edit: To emphasize the point, this comment has been down-voted at least once
- brudgers 12y agoDownvoting for disagreement is beneficial because it often stands in as proxy for an inflamed response. A down vote might be better for the community than a flame war or accusations of trolling or wasting energy trying to convince people that they are wrong. There are times when the community is better for point->counterpoint and times when it isn't. When I suspect it won't be after I have written what I am inclined to write, I down vote. It's often the best among my alternatives after avoiding threads likely to produce crap comments, trolling, and everything I can find elsewhere on the internet.