[forensic]

I appreciate your opinion but I downvoted you because you said "This."

The "This." meme contributes nothing to the post and is the worst kind of contentless bandwagonism.

"This." is lazy and degrades the quality of the site in general.

[younata]

I'm not going to downvote you, but that's an incredibly stupid reason to downvote someone.

"Oh, I don't like your word choice, so I'm going to downvote you regardless of the content."

[mbreese]

I don't know... HN has a history of actively downvoting memes. I don't know if 'This.' qualifies as a meme or not, but it's a valid sentiment.

Then again, if you are replying "This." perhaps the better way to go would be with a simple upvote. But that would really only be expressive if we could see vote counts again.

[younata]

My point was that "this. <explanation and clarification>" does not deserve a downvote (should get an upvote), because it has actual content.

However, a content-free message of simply "this." does deserve a downvote.

[forensic]

The issue isn't "word choice" it is tone and writing style.

Writing in leetspeek is equally objectionable, for instance, and people do downvote those who write that way on HN.

Explaining yourself and adding an original thought is contributing, but saying "This." is not contributing and degrades the quality of the post and HN in general.

[younata]

  > The issue isn't "word choice" it is tone and writing style.

Forgive me, my vocabulary failed me when I was writing that particular sentence.

  > Writing in leetspeek is equally objectionable, for instance, and people do downvote those who write that way on HN.

Good point, although leetspeak kills readability, whereas "this." is just a way to say "yes, I agree with you.".

In my opinion, a comment that is simply "this." should get no votes at all, whereas a comment that is entirely in leetspeak should be downvoted into oblivion. Killing readability is a far greater sin than simply failing to realize that the upvote button exists for a reason.

[odlogan]

How does "Combined with the power of local carrier monopolies, it's exactly the reason we need net neutrality." not qualify as explanation/original thought?

[icebraining]

How is "This." different than "Exactly." and other expressions of agreement in spoken English?

It might not bring new information, but it tells the reader that the rest of the post should be read in a context of agreement with the parent post, so it's useful.