[mithaler]

There was one discussion that I participated where I predicted that Apple would see declining profit margins due to increased competition. Remarkably this completely benign, seemingly obvious observation saw me declared a troll, and shortly thereafter yet another account was hellbanned from HN.

I'm curious--can you paste the text of that comment here if you still have it? It's possible that, for example, it was your tone that got you downvoted, not your message. Or it could have been the community perceiving you to be ignoring evidence, or any number of other things. In any case, this claim here isn't sufficient for us to judge the fairness of the response.

[gbog]

There has been some threads where any comment that was not a praise of Steve Jobs and Apple was downvoted. Sometimes I feel fragmentation on HN, was is upvoted in a thread is downvoted in another.

[einhverfr]

I have watched posts of my own go upvoted then downvoted then up voted then down voted more or less randomly.

FWIW I do NOT think people should downvote based on disagreement. I think downvotes should be sparsely used and I personally upvote even people I disagree with.

[gbog]

Well, maybe, but now I am using thread upvote mostly to promote themes I like to see on HN, and comment downvotes to push down thanks, me-too, or otherwise empty answers.