[tremols]

You will be punished if you criticize communism and angular.js among other subjects where political correctness and idiotical consensus have more weight than reason. The kool kidz rule with an iron fist, and they know no mercy.

[brudgers]

Statistically, downvotes correlate to comments that the community deems low quality. Throwing out buzzwords in lieu of clearly articulated views supported by rationales, reasons, and examples often falls in that category. So do comments that assume that people with contrary views lack reason.

Statistically, the way to avoid downvotes and earn upvotes is with thoughtful well-written comments that contribute to improving or maintaining the quality of HN.

[krapp]

The thing is, despite what many people here seem to think, HN doesn't really have a consensus. If it did, it wouldn't be as paranoid about the Eternal September effect as it is, as one of the symptoms of Eternal September is users not agreeing with and following the consensus set by older members.

What HN does have is a number of mutually opposed consensuses each believing the others are destroying the site by astroturfing and posting irrelevant nonsense. So yes, if you criticize angular.js and communism, you might be punished. But if you criticize capitalism and praise front-end frameworks, someone else will have their knives out for that as well.

[whybroke]

You do realize that you're trying to provide a calm, reasonable explanation to a party who believes HN is plagued by communists.