[whyileft]

On HN the downvote button is definitely considered the disagree button. Downvotes are private whereas comments are public so it ends up actually being the most common action for disagreement. Also, you must have over 500 karma so it is typically older more conservative viewpoints that downvote.

EDIT: One thing I neglected to mention. You can probably tell based upon my comment being downvoted, you are not actually allowed to talk about downvoting. Its kind of like fight club.

[grzm]

Some people do use downvotes for disagreement. I don't think that's particularly productive. Members use downvotes more frequently for comments that are gratuitously negative, snarky, unsubstantive, uncivil, inflammatory, or violate the guidelines. I've seen a lot of well-balanced, reasoned comments on contentious topics that don't get downvoted (from what I can tell from the color of the text.

And yeah, there is are guidelines specifically related to downvotes.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

If you're wading into contentious discussions, be prepared for them. Take extra care to be considered and civil. If you do receive downvotes, consider them as feedback that you could do more to better express yourself. There's nothing you can really do about those who downvoted for disagreement. Commenting on that will definitely result in more downvotes, from what I've observed.

[dukeluke]

I mentioned downvoting and wasn't downvoted. I think that's just the community telling you that they think you're wrong.

[whyileft]

For historical context

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

Based on your green colored name, you may not know that pg is Paul Graham http://www.paulgraham.com/

[grzm]

From what I've gathered, there have been some substantial (but by no means wholesale) changes to HN behavior since then. There is a tension between how up and down work. I can't imagine we want a bunch of "me, too" comments to show agreement, so upvotes are a way to express that.

It would makes sense to consider downvotes similarly, however they also grey out the comment, so they aren't symmetrical actions. I've pointed out 'pg's comment myself in the past, but don't consider it a great practice now. As you note, it's useful for historical context.

[ihsw]

I downvoted you for talking out of your ass about people with over 500 karma being conservative.