| I've long thought and occasionally argued that downvoting should be eliminated. But perhaps the problem isn't downvoting itself (occasionally I see abusive comments downvoted and think yeah, this is what it's for).... The problem is that downvoting has no cost. Anyone can downvote anyone anytime, at no cost to themselves. Contrast this with commenting, which has a cost in time, in mental effort, etc. - and occasionally in karma, when one's comments are downvoted...! IMHO the cost-free nature of downvoting encourages glib, quick, lazy downvoting. It encourages dislike and abuse. Let's make downvoting have a cost - and let's make the cost increase as one downvotes more frequently (if one self-appoints as a guardian of HN, increased cost will police the "guardian's" behaviour). For example, why not a Fibonacci sequence of downvote cost? The first downvote of a period T removes one karma point from the downvoter, the second removes one, the third removes 2, the fourth 3, etc. One's position in the sequence would be reset by not downvoting for some period. People who rarely downvote would incur no practical cost, but people who over downvote would incur a large cost. |