[fifthesteight]

Yeah that's the consensus, and that's what it was meant to be, that's what it once was. However these days, especially in a community where only certain individuals can downvote, they become the only ones to control the discussion. What was supposed to encourage a higher level of discussion has instead created a community that is the exact opposite.

Who cares about my stupid comments, sure, I'm an idiot- I'll agree to that. Unfortunately, I see it happen all the time. The parent of this, for example, was downvoted immediately.

Everyone in this community is prepared to be corrected- the problem is when there's no correction offered. It's a community of suppression, and it's not hard to see.

[reitanqild]

I agree that there is too many incorrect downvotes given.

I don't think it is a big problem though only that it has been slightly increasing.

(one comment you'd see back in the days when comment scores where displayed was: "sorry for the downvote, -reading hn from a mobile device ". You don't see this comment anymore but I'm not sure if that is because it was easier to detect accidental downvotes back then or because people where more polite.)

[DanBC]

There is plenty of disagreement among people who can downvote. And everyone can upvote so bad downvotes should be corrected rapidly by the rest of the community.

Perhaps HN users need to be reminded to upvote things that have been unfairly downvoted? (Although I've seen plenty of examples of corrective upvotes supplied pretty quickly).