Ask HN: Why Do You Downvote? • Hacker News Board

Post by WhompingWindows » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 2:08 AM UTC

FreakLegion wrote: post #93

happytoexplain wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note: The parent was significantly edited while I was writing. >for posting well-written, thought-out responses which other people disagreed with I could write a well-written, thought-out argument in favor of segregating blacks. I'm not suspicious of you - I'm just saying, maybe you're making too much assumption about how valuable your writing is, since you've only used "well written" and "thought out" as evidence. >…

Perusing their history for an example, the most recent is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23882425 , which (lightly) thinks through the question "Are religions another form of MLM?" in response to another comment. It's fine as comments ago, until: > Downvote brigade has arrived, I love receiving downvotes for playing devil's advocate; respond to me if you're disagreeing, don't downvote and bury what you dislike.…

"Who cares?" You're writing in a thread about "Why Do You Downvote?" and you researched numerous comments from my history. So, I think you care, and that proves that downvoting on HN is an interesting issue to you. I think HN cares too, because they disallow downvoting before 500 comment karma is reached.

Let's reset: I think the downvote should be used for low-effort, non-contributive comments like "lol" and "^this". Do you disagree on that point?

Next, I'll admit to self-puffery, no doubt my ideas are not as clever as I imagined when I typed them. However, I don't believe in downvoting merely based on philosophical disagreement. If I'm seen to "downvote brigade" against that practice, so be it, but I believe and will publicly state that downvotes shouldn't bury something that goes against HN/tech/societal orthodoxy. This is how hive-minds and pile-ons form; diversity of thought and opinion is healthy, and challenging one's own assumptions is illuminating. Do we want a community where a differing voice is grayed out and bottomed out within minutes?

Why do I care and fight for broader discourse? IMO, Social media can tend to reduce complex issues to mere scores based on camp-size, and I am fighting to re-complexify our dialogue. Let's upvote towards solid discussion and relish complexity and diversity of thought.