[learc83]

>Please don't downvote comments that contribute to the conversation just because you disagree with them.

That's a rule on Reddit, but to my knowledge it's never been a rule here.

Here's pg's own words on the subject.

>I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

[tzs]

That would make sense if all down voting did was show the net score, or the up/down breakdown.

However, when an article has a more down votes than up votes, it is also made harder to read, and the bigger the difference, the harder to read it becomes. That makes pg's remark make little sense, unless HN is supposed to be a place where disagreeing with the majority is discouraged, which is not very hackerish. Some clarification from pg would be helpful here.