I feel like I'm seeing an increasing number of well reasoned, well written comments being downvoted here simply because folks don't agree.<p>Back in the mists of time when I signed up here I remember reading downvote etiquette is to bury comments which don't add value to the discussion. You can disagree sure, but you don't down vote based on just that.<p>Did I imagine that?<p>I fear that ever increasing downvotes are going to discourage reasoned and wide ranging discourse from both sides of the spectrum. It would be a shame if we ended up as another one sided echo chamber and we'll certainly be the worse off for it.<p>Am I the only one seeing this?
This has been discussed many times. Down votes have always been used for disagreement.<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658691" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658691</a>
To answer your question: yes, you imagined that—or more likely you read it about some other forum and it mentally hopped to HN.<p>Downvoting for disagreement has always been allowed here.<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314</a><p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16574021" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16574021</a>
Two things: firstly, I did not know that was the etiquette and secondly, it is very easy to imagine something you disagree with is poorly reasoned.<p>When someone says something you agree with (say, we need testing) then you automatically think of all the reasons you believe it and fill in the gaps in reasoning. If someone says something you do not agree with (we need more testing), you automatically summon the counter arguments to each point the person has laid out, and you roll your virtual eyes at this person for not thinking through "basic" things you feel you know.<p>In short, none of our intuitions on what constitutes reasonable or reasoned are innocent.
I've often thought of making a web site with two voting mechanisms. Here's a million dollar idea you can have for free.<p>The two voting buttons on every post are:<p>Agree vs. Disagree<p>Important vs. Not important<p>Disagree/Important means that even though I disagree with this comment, it makes an important point, and I recommend others should read it.<p>Agree/Unimportant means that even though I agree with this comment, it doesn't add anything significant to the conversation, and you can safely skip reading it.<p>Any web site with only one voting mechanism will surely have different people with different opinions on what that one voting mechanism means.
LOL ohhh the irony... Why is this flagged?<p>It's an honest question, 34 points in under an hour, 28 on-topic comments of people interested in and discussing the topic.
My biggest problem with downvoting on HN is that it can make comments effectively impossible to read. This is not how to improve discourse.<p>Plus, we already have the flagging mechanism for auto-collapsing flagged comments, why are there two mechanisms to make comments unreadable?
Many times the grey comments bounce back to black after some time.<p>I usually upvote grey comments even if I disagree, unless they are offensive or very wrong. I also try to avoid downvoting grey comments, unless they are very offensive or extremely wrong.
This is nearly always a problem in open communities with voting. Even if such ettiquette is in place, enough people will ignore it or disagree on what it means that it may as well not exist.<p>As a result, discussions boil down to relatively inoffensive and well-accepted opinions as those who disagree with the hivemind's consensus are either downvoted or are afraid of being downvoted because they know their contribution won't be accepted.<p>The only online spaces I've seen where this isn't a problem are those that are strongly moderated, for example Reddit's /r/AskHistorians, and spaces where the community is small, tight-knit and known to each other.<p>In the former case, the responsibility for determining what has any value and what doesn't is left to the moderators, who follow strict, publicly visible rules. Anything left is required to be high-quality.<p>In the second, either people assume the best of each other or they're more averse to conflict. I like to believe the former.
Even if HN does not have a problem with irrational downvoting, some observers will always be biased toward that conclusion, since you can't see the upvotes people may be making on comments they disagree with, but feel are worthwhile, or feel are being over-downvoted.
Additionally, down-voting an already grey comment which is not simply a trolling comment (or one the user likely knows will get down-voted such as for excessive snark), and then not leaving a comment simply makes for a terrible community.<p>I have a greater issue when a well-written, even if brief, comment gets down-voted heavily and nobody leaves a reply to explain why than when someone down-votes for disagreeing.
Both sides of what spectrum? What kind of echo chamber? It sounds like you have an opinion about which group is being excluded.<p>Is it always valuable to hear "both sides"? I'd argue that's a bad idea in practice. For example, if an anti-vaxxer came in and started commenting, I don't feel we owe them equal time or comment space. I'm OK with down voting and moving on.