
Too easy to get down-votes when commenting - teslacar
Hacker News should have a system where down-votes only count half as much as up-votes.  The problem is, let&#x27;s say you have an issue where the community is 60% &#x27;opposed&#x27; and 40% &#x27;for&#x27;. going against the grain means you will always have a net-negative vote count.
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dragonwriter
> The problem is, let's say you have an issue where the community is 60%
> 'opposed' and 40% 'for'. going against the grain means you will always have
> a net-negative vote count.

No, it doesn't. Numerous threads on hotly contested issues have substantive
comments taking opposing sides and neither having net-negative scores.

They also tend to have unsubstantiated comments on opposing sides, both sides
having negative scores. Popularity of the idea presented probably has some
contribution to score, but it's not the dominant factor by a long shot.

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urs2102
I just think most of the community is well aware that downvotes are not for
'opposition', but rather for things that do not contribute to discussion.

Then again, I am totally speculating.

~~~
dozzie
But there are still people who use it as "I disagree" button, and even those
who use it as a retaliation of sorts (I was (still am?) targeted by such an
individual; sadly, HN's contact mail is hosted on Gmail, which likes to mark
smaller servers as spam, so my contact try never got a response).

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LordWinstanley
Why do you care about votes [whether up, down, or sideways]?

At the end of the day it's only people being "wrong on the internet"

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mamaniscalco
The fastest way to get down voted is to reply to any post which is even
slightly political with anything other than a leftist bent. (^:

In my opinion, down voting should require responding. If something is worthy
of a down vote then surely it worthy of rebuttal as well.

~~~
hackuser
I feel this oft-repeated argument is a canard, whose strength is mostly from
its repetition. One sign of such things is hyperbole such as "even slightly",
"anything other than'. Hyperbole, to me, is a substitute for a lack of
substantive argument. I recently posted something that is 'leftist' and I
think it's down to -4 (which is fine).

I'd look at it serious if there was some data, however.

EDIT: De-inflammatorization

