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Ask HN: Should the downvote button exist in comments here?

5 points by seydor ↗ HN
I am noticing a lot of emotionally-driven downvoting in the past 3-4 years. Do we really need another reddit?

7 comments

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draw_down
I’m not sure what it means to say we “need” that or not. but you could say the same of no downvotes, “do we need another twitter?”

Are emotional upvotes a problem, or just the downvotes?

willcipriano
I get downvoted fairly frequently and I don't mind. Sometimes it helps make my point, typically around censorship. It will be bad for another year or two but the Overton window is sliding back towards the middle and hopefully we can get back to people having opinions that differ from the mainstream not being reflexabily punished on sight. I vote in favor of downvotes.
turpialito
More oft than not, downvotes reflect the biases (read: blindness) of those downvoting.
seydor
What is the point then of having a downvote option that is exclusively available to "seasoned users" if they are going to act like children again

i dont mind the downvoting itself, but the fact that it is used as an emotional release. that s contrary to the dynamics of the site here, which generally promotes frank discussion and not quick dismissals

cc101
If the term were "Disagree" rather than "Downvote", the atmosphere would be more civil. Also, this would encourage more temperate minded folks to express themselves, and I think that would be more informative. As it is, "Downvote" tends to smear both sides of an issue rather than open a discussion attempting to understand and moderate the issue.
navjack27
There's a down vote? I'm only aware of the up arrow and the minus sign.
josephcsible
Yes. You just don't see it because you don't have enough karma for it yet.