[unabst]

If it's far from perfect, let's improve it. It's not downvote or nothing.

Downvotes are meant to tame the insults and offensive comments. But what if downvotes themselves are insulting and offensive? Are there really no other options?

But the even deeper issue is that this may be the HN the moderators want, and it does sound like it is.

Deeper issues are often ideological discussions. Yet, ideological battles are not to be fought on HN.

But the ideology needs to be settled before technical solutions can commence. Implementing a better downvote or an alternative is a technical problem. Deciding to do so requires ideological decisions, such as, prioritize free speech.

[unabst]

So what exactly is wrong with this answer that it deserves to be downvoted?

[unabst]

So I am being asked to self-censor by "the community"? Was this comment downvoted because we're not allowed to talk about downvotes? But the topic is downvoting.

I'm genuinely curious and believe there is a better way to treat users on the internet other than handing out wrist slapping rights to everyone, and permitting petty downvoting without recourse or discourse.

I am not trolling, not spreading propaganda, have no hidden agenda, my analysis is fact-based, and I care. I may not be the best at it, but I try to make my points as accurately and respectfully as possible. But none of that matters.

I'm dead.

[Wowfunhappy]

I downvote comments which I think make bad arguments. They either posit something without justifying it, or simply re-state what they said in their last comment.

This is not a judgement of the commenter's self-worth—merely of what I think other users ought to see. This way, the most interesting comments rise to the top, the least interesting comments fade away, and HN becomes a more interesting place with a higher signal-to-noise ratio.

In the case of your comment, I personally felt it was just a rehash of your prior comment (which does not appear to have a negative score as of this writing), without adding anything new. The comment reads "it's not downvote or nothing," but doesn't offer a plausible alternative for maintaining HN's high level of discourse.

Because the comment didn't contain anything new (as far as I could tell), I couldn't respond without perpetuating a circuitous thread. My response would likely have been downvoted as well, and rightly so.

I also downvoted your followup "why was I downvoted" comment, because the guidelines say not to discuss comment scores. I like this guideline, because arguing about comment votes is boring and uninteresting. Furthermore, if I answered your question, I'd be breaking the guideline myself. I'm now doing it anyway because you asked multiple times. :)

It's very possible that the other downvoters and I all misunderstood your comment. Then again, if we all misunderstood, it's likely other readers will too, and I'm thinking of their reading experience.

Anyway, I hope you'll stick around and I definitely hope you did not die!