I wonder how pervasive this is on HN, since you need a minimum of 500 karma before you can downvote someone. I have to admit though, over the past year HN has started to feel more like reddit (this is not my first account, I have been here for many years). I don't think it's because of poor moderation, I think it's just a result of HN becoming popular enough that it's attracting a larger audience.
This could be true, however for me and what I think may be a larger issue is that people are getting tired of using Reddit and other sites altogether and there are few alternatives that offer good discussions. The reason Reddit became popular when it started I feel was for the niche subreddits and information and discussions on Reddit that you wouldn't find elsewhere on the web. Now Reddit censors anything outside of the hive-mind when it comes to common popular subreddits. Sure there are good subreddits with discussions and information still out there but unless you know where to look, the popular subreddits feel more like advertising designed to look like someone submitted something.
I remember when people migrated from Digg 2.0 and Slashdot over to Reddit sometime around 2005.
It appears now people have been increasingly jumping ship from Reddit to other platforms for the niche information while still using Reddit for the meme's and cat videos.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=66057
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=223184
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=225134
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=247582
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=278785
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=289254
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=576431
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=582513
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=633099
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926703
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1495742
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1523969
It would be fun to find the first appearance of this on HN. Here's one from when HN was still called Startup News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852. So HN was turning into Reddit before it was HN. (The name Hacker News came in Aug 2007: https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html)
[1] Actually it was Fontenelle, not Voltaire, but I guess all 18th century French jokes eventually go to Voltaire.
I know it's a common trope to complain about HN becoming like reddit, but that doesn't mean it will never happen. Of course, I don't even know how I would identify that beyond how it feels, which isn't any stronger of an argument than everybody before me has made.
I guess the real question is, assuming it happens, how would we even know?
I see your point though - I'm not bringing up anything new and in that sense it's not interesting.
Unfortunately, I think the cat has left the bag. Removing the censorship feature from downvotes would counteract most of the damage it does to discourse, I think.
In fact, the guideline against downvote complaints predates the guideline against "turning into Reddit" complaints by a couple of years: https://web.archive.org/web/20080706144102/http://ycombinato...