This is the one aspect of HN that cast a bad light on the nature of the community. There seem to be what I've come to call groups of "fan-boys" who downvote based on ideology rather than on the merits of the comments.
The problem is that this very quickly starts to feel like any other forum where things generally degenerate to the point where only seven people are posting because anyone else becomes afraid of the wolves attacking.
My opinon: Down-voting ought to cost you (the down-voter) a significant chunk of points, say, 10%. And, you should be obligated to post a reason. And, if the reason is bullshit and it gets downvoted, you loose another 10% of your points.
In other words, it better be valid.
The rules could be a little more elaborate than that, but this might be a good start.
I was actually about to suggest something similar, and in fact the number I was thinking is 20%. You are right -- it ought to cost something to downvote, but not so much that it discourages downvote completely.
It may be a bit complicated to implement the follow-up adjustment of karma, so I'm not too strong on that.
Stack overflow does this, but I think only under certain conditions. Like if the question has been upvoted, or if you are the first person. I am not too familiar with how they do it.
I disagree a bit on the fan-boy downvotes. From what I have observed, anecdotally ofcourse, there are many fan boy comments with no downvotes than those that get downvoted by fanboys..
The problem is that this very quickly starts to feel like any other forum where things generally degenerate to the point where only seven people are posting because anyone else becomes afraid of the wolves attacking.
My opinon: Down-voting ought to cost you (the down-voter) a significant chunk of points, say, 10%. And, you should be obligated to post a reason. And, if the reason is bullshit and it gets downvoted, you loose another 10% of your points.
In other words, it better be valid.
The rules could be a little more elaborate than that, but this might be a good start.