
Ask HN: Why the downvote mechanism for comments, anyways? - Fjolsvith
As a frequently downvoted commenter on HN, I&#x27;ve done a lot of thinking about this mechanism, and I would like to propose a change to it.<p>Since the goal of HN is to encourage discussion and debate, why not require a reply to a comment before you can downvote it?<p>This would change the negative, conversation stifling enablement into one that requires a person to contribute to the discourse before voting their disapproval.  It would help to distinguish HN from other driveby, populist moderated forums.
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mtmail
Some comments are so stupid and off-topic, example
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22766042](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22766042),
a simple downvote is enough. Engaging in a reply is IMHO just feeding trolls
who are trying to be edgy/funny and not add value to the discussion. "He's the
one" (in the example), the reply to the "He's the one", the reply to that
reply for example. Same for "+1", "LOL" and other one word exclamation
comments. Looking at your comments, like "That will touch off the hoarding of
kitty litter!", the downvotes are IMHO justified and I'd like to see less of
those. I'm kind of saying they're a hint on the quality of said comment.

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archsurface
The problem is that many people downvote because they disagree, rather than as
a reflection on the quality of the comment.

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wglb
Downvoting for disagreement has always been the norm, even according to 'PG.

