>I've seen many thoughtful, well presented, well reasoned posts get down voted almost certainly solely because they argued for a minority opinion on some issue.

>I've seen many thoughtful, well presented, well reasoned posts get down voted almost certainly solely because they argued for a minority opinion on some issue. Exactly. Advocating downvotes for disagreement simply has the effect of encouraging groupthink. It can also be dismissive of thoughtful people's efforts to contribute something insightful to the discussion. In fact, there are some topics on HN that are practically undiscussable because the dogma is too entrenched. But, what's the value of a discussion-oriented site if the incentive is on encouraging people to say "I agree"?