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Ask HN: Downvotes on HN is killing me. How about you?

11 points by yohann305 ↗ HN
I've been thinking for a while what i hate about HN is that i feel restrained from commenting on posts because people have a tendency of downvoting you if they don't like what you have to say or if what you have to say is against their "ideology".

Are you guys bothered with this too?

6 comments

[ 12.1 ms ] story [ 605 ms ] thread
fhood
Welcome to the world of forums, where nobody has managed to separate inappropriate/off-topic from "I disagree".
umvi
The downvotes themselves don't usually bother me, it's usually the lack of provided reason. It may help if HN required downvoters to provide a downvote reason (either from a dropdown, or free form).
tootie
I don't see it very often. I only downvote when someone is making a deliberately baseless or off-topic comment. I think we should maintain zero tolerance for trolling but allow for dissent.
MichaelMoser123
It might be that you are taking this board too seriously (yes, I want to be downvoted on a discussion of downvotes :-)

Edit: a suggestion: you can have a mood button in the reply box - if you indicate to 'strongly disagree' then the reply post would be a downvote of the parent post, and additional upvotes of the reply would be turned into additional downvotes of the parent post. I think that would make it much less passive-aggressive. On the downside discussions would probably turn more adverserial.