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Hacker News Guidelines

(news.ycombinator.com)
446 points tonmoy | 1 comments | 24 Aug 23 16:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.516s | source
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Pannoniae ◴[24 Aug 23 17:30 UTC] No.37251926[source]▶
There's really one thing missing from the guidelines IMO - "don't downvote for disagreement, downvote for offtopic/flamebait/inappropriate comment".

Well, this should be obvious, but it sadly isn't...

replies(8): >>37251993 #>>37251994 #>>37252080 #>>37252462 #>>37252692 #>>37253548 #>>37255011 #>>37255520 #
em-bee ◴[24 Aug 23 17:34 UTC] No.37251993[source]▶
according to others downvote for disagreement is appropriate.

offtopic/flamebait/inappropriate comments should probably be flagged.

replies(2): >>37252404 #>>37252468 #
1. Pannoniae ◴[24 Aug 23 18:01 UTC] No.37252404[source]▶
I think it really conflicts with the "optimise for curiosity" aspect of the site. Downvoting comments for disagreement does not help curiosity, as it just downranks insightful yet unpopular opinions, which obviously does not help encourage curiosity. The real offtopic/flamebait comments get flagged anyway, so downvotes aren't needed to keep the site functional and interesting.

(last sentence was slightly edited for clarity)