Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think refraining from posting due to fear of downvotes is a massive disservice to HN. People should be exposed to views of all kinds. It wouldn't be very interesting if we all agreed. No evidence for this, but I think more commonly people refrain from posting because if you have a controversial opinion you don’t get one thread of posts to reply to suddenly everyone piles on and you’re “discussing” it with 50 diff…
I've certainly experienced that. Depending on the complexity of the replies, I'll either reply to everyone or choose one of them to respond to.
It’s debilitating to have people throwing their 2c in to a growing tree thread and bounce! At least with linear vbulletin forums of old people would have to scroll past the conversation or look like idiots when they reply something totally out of context.