

Ask YC: Why can't you down-mod people's responses to you? - time_management

I understand the potential for abuse here, but I feel like the pros outweigh the cons, and I highly doubt that adding this ability would have a "chilling effect" on disagreements. Quite frankly, most of us don't care about karma enough that we would withhold disagreements for fear of a 1-point reprisal.<p>I usually up-vote people who disagree with me, actually, if I find that they're contributing to the discussion in a thoughtful way. It's the HN way, no?<p>But occasionally I get a reply that really deserves it, like this one, which I cannot down-mod: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=457222
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pg
It would tend to be done reflexively-- maybe not by you, but by a lot of
users. Not allowing it seemed a way to filter out what would almost certainly
be the least thoughtful subset of votes, thereby raising the thoughtfulness of
the median vote.

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alain94040
Agreed. It would be abused in 95% of the scenarios. For the 5% of legitimate
uses, you'll have to believe that someone other than you will do the modding.

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steveplace
Helps information liquidity during debates.

Also, the your comment which is the parent to the aforementioned doesn't seem
to be contributing much.

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russell
I disagree. Sort of reminds me of the mess on ebay where buyers were afraid to
down mod sellers because they were afraid of retaliation. Not quite the same
here, but I trust the rest of the community to take care of any problems. If a
poor comment stays there, it's probably because at least some agree with it.

