[happytoexplain]

There is obviously going to be some amount of abuse of the downvote button as an "I disagree" button in a large group of people, no matter how intellectually curious they are on average. On the other side of the equation, there is also always going to be some amount of people who write a low-quality post that hurts the conversation, and interpret the downvotes they receive as being of the "I disagree" variety (sounds like, "but it's true"). And of course, this categorization will be varyingly subjective per post.

My experience has been that HN has the fewest of both problems out of anywhere on the internet. But I've been here for less than five years. If it was even better before that, I am surprised, and sad that it has somewhat fallen. It would however mirror the similar falloff I've seen on the rest of the internet.

Note that this is compounded by the HN audience using the downvote button in a somewhat unique way: As far as I can tell, if they don't think something contributes, they will downvote even if there is nothing inflammatory or shitty in the post. E.g. if somebody replies with something like, "I agree" or even just a joke, they are frequently downvoted. This looks harsh, but I actually have found relief in the relative scarcity of these kinds of nice-but-low-content posts that pepper the rest of the internet.