1. Lack of down-vote means vocal minorities are
disproportionately represented.
2. Votes on comments are used to express agreement
or disagreement rather than value, perhaps because
many people simply cannot see the difference
between the two.
3. The community is full of ideologues to the point
where the comments are most often just predictable
talking points being regurgitated ad nauseum.
4. The community is often snobbish and out of touch
with how the other half lives.
5. It's a time suck.
6. It removes comments from where they should be,
on the destination site.
7. It reduces blogging time.
Food for thought... How can we improve?
Disclaimer: I'm a devotee of HN; It's home, but also I'm a devotee of critical thinking.
> 1. Lack of down-vote means vocal minorities are disproportionately represented.
Allow downvotes for submissions.
> 2. Votes on comments are used to express agreement or disagreement rather than value, perhaps because many people simply cannot see the difference between the two.
Downvoter has to write a short explanation of the downvote. He's warned that admins can ban people who downvote just because they disagree.
I heard the Old Ones say that, before my time, there used to be a downvote button, but it went away because the tribalism led to, e.g., non-Apple stories being voted off the front page.
I rarely hit the upvote button because it feels broken to me without a downvote. Maybe a handful of articles a week. Flag maybe once or twice a week. Although I liberally use the upvote buttons in comments.
> Votes on comments are used to express agreement or disagreement rather than value, perhaps because many people simply cannot see the difference between the two
Does that mean that we better down-vote whenever we see a comment does not add value to the topic?
Disclaimer: I'm a devotee of HN; It's home, but also I'm a devotee of critical thinking.