I couldn't agree more. I'm not sure how to solve the problem though, other than trying to teach people to treat the down vote button more respectfully.
IMO there shouldn't be a down vote button at all, and to be honest I can't see its purpose. If a comment is trolling or being aggressive then you should flag it, so where is there room for the down vote button?
It becomes quite intuitive to just use it for what you consider an "invalid opinion" regardless of how much you try to teach people otherwise, because it's so convenient to use and people are less rational when they are angered.
The downvote button is supposed to be for non-constructive (i.e. stupid/useless) or offtopic messages. Flag is for spam and very very inflammatory stuff.
It is NOT supposed to be used for incorrect messages! (Or at least, if the message is grey, don't keep downvoting it just because there is a mistake in it. One downvote is enough.) And most especially it is not for disagreeing with someone - that's what the reply button is for.
Too many people come here from reddit with the mentality that downvote is for disagreement.
I think the mentality that downvote = disagreement is widespread on any site with a karma/voting mechanism. Many subreddits themselves say right in the sidebar (and often elsewhere) that "downvote only if something is off-topic or does not contribute to discussion", but everyone still tends to use it that way.
So I think the issue is somewhat bigger than reddit or HN or even just a certain slice of users. It seems to be a fundamental problem in understanding up/down votes. Maybe psychologically we're inclined to downvote when we disagree, whether consciously or not.
I am also guilty of this even though I know better. It's hard to resist downvoting something I disagree with. It's like a natural response I have to actively work against.
It's human nature. If something offends you, you WANT it to be wrong/unfair/trolling. And so it becomes just that, and then your downvote is justified.
My theory is that it's because it's to convenient.
A solution could be to move it to next to the flag button, maybe? And also making it a bit more difficult to do, like requiring the user to input a reason.
I agree that some people will always downvote to disagree. (I do, but I'm trying to stop it (to the point where I'm going to greasemonkey a script to take the button away)).
I also agree that people should probably not downvote to disagree.
But also, when other people see a grey comment and they think it's unfairly downvoted they should supply a corrective upvote. I know some people on HN do this, but I get the impression that not enough people do.
>Too many people come here from reddit with the mentality that downvote is for disagreement.
I'm not so sure about that.
I came from Reddit too, however I've been here for months now, and I still can't downvote anyone. From what I'm told, you need a karma of 1000 to get that ability. I can only upvote.
So, you have to be a longtime HNer to even have this ability to silence other peoples' opinions. You cannot be some newbie here and downvote people, unless you hit the karma jackpot by making a few posts that get hundreds and hundreds of upvotes.
Therefore, I think it's much more likely that what you're seeing (dissenting opinions being downvoted) is coming from both the heavy-handed non-transparent moderators, and from others in their "inner circle" of longtime members.
> Therefore, I think it's much more likely that what you're seeing (dissenting opinions being downvoted) is coming from both the heavy-handed non-transparent moderators, and from others in their "inner circle" of longtime members.
???
There is no such group on HN. Where are you getting this idea? (Look at my karma score and date joined - if there was such a group I'd know about it by now.)
And on top of that there are tons of users who can downvote, you don't have to be part of some mythical inner circle.
What you said is of course correct, but what I'm saying is that while the concept of a down vote button is useful, people end up using it in the fashion I described because of its convenience.
Maybe merging them isn't the best idea, but changing it to mimic the flag button (i.e. moving it and requiring a reason to be specified before submission) would probably fix this issue, I'd wager.
Well, some systems have a seperate option for 'like/dislike and agree/disagree'. And a bunch of other things.
So maybe something like that could work on Hacker News. Slashdot had it, XenForo forums have used for a plugin for it for years and Facebook has just introduced something akin to it in Reactions.
IMO there shouldn't be a down vote button at all, and to be honest I can't see its purpose. If a comment is trolling or being aggressive then you should flag it, so where is there room for the down vote button?
It becomes quite intuitive to just use it for what you consider an "invalid opinion" regardless of how much you try to teach people otherwise, because it's so convenient to use and people are less rational when they are angered.