Ask HN: What kind of a downvoter are you?

You are right, it's not really random, but it can certainly feel that way.

I can throw the pedantry right back at you though: I didn't quote a percentage of randomness so I made a true statement. Some degree of randomness is present (if nothing else, it would be the percentage of readers having a bad day at that moment). So there :P

You are depicting humans as agents which respond to emotion and, at most, "rationalize" instead of vetting. That is gratuitous, defeatist and a generalization. That some people are capable of some degree of openness, and also of intellectual integrity, should hopefully be a given experience.

A hefty part of education and social interaction should bring (at least some) abilities in emotion control, intellectual integrity, and, first of all, reflection.

Never downvote. If a comment was just racial slurs or something, others will downvote. Otherwise, never downvote an idea regardless of 'provocativeness' or otherwise. In fact the provocative approach can often be what breaks cognitive dissonance. hunter s thompson or matt taibbi for example do this well. Gonzo journalism is easier to consume than yellow journalism coming from mass media.

>For example, I'll sometimes see a massively downvoted comment that's constructive and beautifully written, but it carries an opinion that is not currently popular for whatever reason.

Agreed. This is toxic to community and shuts down discussion. In fact I might even suggest that this happening essentially breaks the community. Not sure what to call it, but its not a community anymore.

>I believe that downvoting someone just because you disagree with them is terrible for a discussion network like HN. Moreover, I would say that I learned the most from the comments that I disagreed with - on all levels, politically, technologically, personally.

This is really bad on HN. Not as bad as Reddit obviously. This has been more recently bad because we are a society inflection point. Reddit/HN are just the battlegrounds. Hell even the universities are battegrounds. Back in the day the universities were all about free speech and having diverse discussions about everything. Today? That sure isnt happening anymore.

The exercise here isn't about how to get better discussions. It's about identifying the discussions you're not allowed to have. Climate change for example is completely off limits. Why is it off limits? There's a significant number of people who believe we are on the verge of human extinction. To argue against climate change in any degree is tantamount to encouraging or contributing to our extinction. That's literally terms of war.

It's interesting to try to find all the issues you aren't allowed to discuss on HN. You can then also see who is doing it and why. The curious thing is why they are so secretive.

When you understand, how does it work out? What's going to be the event that fixes this? It's going to take a major event. World war against china? A greater depression? They are right and we will be extinct in about 10 years? It's unclear what it will be, but there's something bad coming.

Interesting. Here, I do that but also upvote based on someone being the opposite of a troll: I will sometimes upvote comments that aren't super informative if they contribute to a general tone/culture of supporting discussion. (Like apologies or 'I was wrong' type comments; I think it's good if people can admit mistakes so I upvote to try to encourage this.)

I’m not any kind of downvoter because it’ll take me a decade to have enough internet points to be permitted to contribute in this way.