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

4 pointsby time_management18 lat temu4 comments

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.

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?

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

4 comments

pg17 lat temu

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.

alain9404017 lat temu

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.

steveplace17 lat temu

Helps information liquidity during debates.

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

russell17 lat temu

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.

[deleted]17 lat temu