[fro0116]

FWIW I've always been of the opinion that HN would be better off without downvoting.

Most arguments for downvoting I've heard revolve around the desire to maintain a high signal to noise ratio, but in my view, the marginal increase in SNR downvoting offers over upvoting and flagging alone isn't worth the chilling effect it has on unpopular speech.

Even without downvoting, popular comments will rise up to the top and inappropriate comments will be flagged to oblivion.

Downvoting is just an additional layer of censorship on comments that express unpopular opinions. While the first layer of censorship (from popular comments getting bumped up by upvoting) can be justified because of its high marginal contribution to SNR over a system without any censorship mechanism other than flagging, I don't think the same can be said about downvoting in a system where upvoting and flagging already exists.

I feel downvoting has steadily been turning the HN comments section into yet another uninteresting, groupthinking hivemind with nothing provocative to offer, and will continue to do so until it gets reined in. And this is speaking as someone who doesn't get downvotes all that often.