[koboll]

I strongly disagree with you.

But I just want to say it's disappointing that you're being downvoted by people because they disagree with you, rather than because you're not contributing to the conversation.

[kick]

Paul Graham:

I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness.

It only becomes abuse when people resort to karma bombing: downvoting a lot of comments by one user without reading them in order to subtract maximum karma. Fortunately we now have several levels of software to protect against that.

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

[smudgymcscmudge]

That’s good to know. I hadn’t read that before.

[geomark]

I feel the same. Upvoted not because I agree, but because I disagree and want to hear arguments that oppose mine. That's how it's done, son.

[natch]

Same, but I think saying these arguments "oppose yours" is a bit too flattering to the arguments. They aren't really legitimate enough to rise to the level of opposing a reasoned view. But I understand what you mean.

Let's just recognize that they are ill-founded arguments coming from someone who has not grasped the basic points of the article, or the basic issues of what is being discussed.