[enlyth]

I also find that HackerNews doesn't suffer from groupthink as bad as other platforms. It is common to find Opinion A the top voted comment, and Opinion B which is completely contrary will be the most upvoted child comment, because both present valid points.

It feels more like an adult conversation where people can agree to disagree and carry on with their lives.

The high standard of moderation also helps.

[nine_k]

I very often upvote pairs of well-written comments that challenge each other, even if I disagree with one or both of them.

Beside promoting quality reasoning and references to interesting sources, I have an egotistic motive: bring more attention to the civilized discussion and thus get fresh opinions and references to help me make my own opinion.

[bombcar]

This is one of the reasons that I upvote comments I disagree with. If it’s posited even a bit well, it’s valuable.

[pfarrell]

Agreed. IMO, the down-vote should be used for comments that don’t add to the discussion or devolve to personal attacks, not to express disagreement.

[wizofaus]

That's not just your opinion, that's surely exactly the intention of the downvote option. If I were to suggest one small change to HN it would be to have to select your reason for downvoting (or flagging), such that "I disagree" is clearly not one of the available options.

[eindiran]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=392347

[wizofaus]

Well there you go. I feel like I have a hat to eat now.

[metadat]

People would still tend to (ab)use the downvote button as an outlet to express their discontent / disagreement. Just human nature, we can't all be robots.

To be clear: I frequently find myself undoing my downvote actions after a moment of reflection, in cases where I realize I've done an impulsive downvote because I didn't "like" the comment. I'm not perfect (first to admit: far from it), but I do try to be a good member of and positive force in our community.

Really appreciate you folks, most of the time this is a really cool place to spend time. Also, @dang deserves a lot of credit for keeping things headed in the right direction.

[mikestew]

...that's surely exactly the intention of the downvote option.

Someone will be along shortly with link to Paul Graham writing that a downvote button can be used for disagreement. I disagree, so I don't have that one in my bookmarks, sorry.

[tptacek]

It's not just Graham; it's current site moderation policy, and the rationale has been explained repeatedly (to wit: we don't want meta-discussions about the validity of votes, which are boring and outcompete substantive conversations, since everyone can come up with an opinion about a vote on the fly).

[pfarrell]

I knew the policy about meta discussion, but on a thread that itself was meta, talking about the thing using the thing, I figured I'd lay out one comment about commenting. I discovered, on closer inspection, that the guidelines also ask one not leave comments about the why of flagging a story. I rarely flag stories and have been guilty once of doing just that.

[mountainriver]

I also find HN unique in this regard, it’s so refreshing to have a platform where people of differing opinions can actually communicate without being downvoted to oblivion.

The other day I posted a differing opinion from the norm on Reddit and was downvoted out of the room. It was a well thought totally reasonable opinion.

What does it mean for these wildly popular platforms if we are unable to have adult conversations?

[clove]

I remember seeing data on Reddit users some time back. You're not dealing with adults, in general. It's mostly bots, kids, and young adults who still live in their parents' basement. You shouldn't go to a Fortnite convention and expect to have adult conversations, either.

[bmn__]

I invite you to read HN with "showdead", you are bound to quickly change your high opinion. The amount of petty flagging and downvotes to suppress diverging opinions is staggering.

[dang]

If you see a [dead] comment that shouldn't be dead, you can vouch for it, which (when enough users do that) brings it back from the [dead]. See https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#cvouch. We added that feature years ago because banned accounts sometimes post good things.

If you see an account whose posts are nearly all [dead] - which means either they're banned or running afoul of our software somehow - and you don't think they deserve that fate, you can always email [e-mail] and ask us to take a look. I've actually been working on a ban review system that will allow us to catch cases where accounts have been making good posts and don't need to be banned anymore. Though in the Dostoevskian underworld of internet dynamics, I have seen several cases of banned accounts which, as soon as they noticed they weren't banned, immediately begin violating the site rules in the most garish way until we ban them...apparently indicating that they prefer that state.

Please make sure you're up on https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, though, because if an account has been breaking the site guidelines, you can spare yourself the trouble of emailing—we're just going to point that out as the reason why the account needs to remain banned.

[mikestew]

I browse with "showdead", and I find it to be a constant reminder of why such things are necessary. It is rare that I find a shadow-banned chucklehead who isn't an actual chucklehead blow-hard, and when I do I let them know (if possible) that they might want to hit up the moderators. Can't remember the last time I felt it necessary to do that, though.

[miloignis]

I do read HN with "showdead", and I wouldn't say that it's staggering - IMHO, maybe 1/5 or 1/10 shouldn't be dead.

[Turing_Machine]

+1.

The "you're posting too fast" thing when you get mobbed is another terrible feature.