[smogcutter]

I see what you mean, but I think the “fading” is meant to systematically steer downvotes away from meaning plain disagreement. Whether it succeeds is another issue.

The fading indicates that what an HN downvote means is “I think people shouldn’t see this/this shouldn’t be part of the thread”. Whether it’s bc the post is off topic, flame bait, trolling, just plain boneheaded, etc., is kind of beside the point, although ideally it isn’t simply disagreement.

But that means replying to a post you downvote makes no sense. Why further a conversation you’re trying to bury?

Also, if an opinion is so unpopular it gets downvoted into oblivion, maybe a forum based on votes just isn’t the right venue for it. Start a blog.

[disgruntledphd2]

It's more about the opinion relative to the overall context of the thread. As an example, if you try to defend or contextualise Facebook (the company's) actions in a thread about how much they suck, you'll get downvoted.

The same opinion in a different thread will probably just be ignored, because people self-select into threads based on what they care about, and the FB dislikers won't be so concentrated.

Nastiness and "can't you just" statements tend to get downvoted regardless of context though.