I don't care about karma. You are free to not believe me, I don't care about that either.
However, I care a lot about HN, and the possibility to have reasonable discussions here. I am not the only one to have sensed the impact of a the Apple lover crowd trying to bury down other thoughts or any slight criticism. Gosh, even the respected and respectable Fred Wilson did notice this issue on his blog (avc.com).
My only point is I prefer HN without meta-talk about karma and comment scores. Your disclaimer paragraphs probably do nothing to soothe the apple fanboys and can be annoying to those who actually agree with you. (Enough with the meta from my part)
The problem is that downvotes make the text lighter colored and harder to read, which is a huge motivator for partisans to censor things they don't like or find inconvenient.
However, I care a lot about HN, and the possibility to have reasonable discussions here. I am not the only one to have sensed the impact of a the Apple lover crowd trying to bury down other thoughts or any slight criticism. Gosh, even the respected and respectable Fred Wilson did notice this issue on his blog (avc.com).