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Comment by pbhjpbhj | Hacker News Reader

Meh, HN seems to hate questions when they think the questioner isn't genuine: Basically if they wish the answer weren't true. That's been my recent experience anyway.

Better suggestion - stop politicking and answer the question or move on.

Sure if the question is badly made then downvote it. Whilst downvote for disagreement is encouraged here (by the site owners) you can't "disagree" with a question, that's nonsensical.

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Downvoting for disagreement is encouraged? That's news to me! Not welcome news either, because I like the idea that the "quality" of the comment matters more.

Personally, while I don't downvote for disagreement, I definitely will downvote (what I perceive as) disingenuous questions — There's more productive ways to express an opinion.

pg (the site's creator) once wrote that it's ok[1], and the current mods have cited that post recently[2], indicating it's still the policy.

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

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17996858

I make a habit of commenting if I downvote, sure, the commenter might not like what I have to say but I feel I owe it to them to be as honest about why I felt they weren't contributing to the discussion.

To answer your question: "how can you disagree with a question"; well, you can downvote a question that is loaded (with some kind of ignorant agenda) or a question that is so blisteringly ignorant by itself that it is plain and obvious that the commenter didn't read the article posted, even a skim-read.

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