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Comment by vannevar | Hacker News Reader

Yes, in contrast to the upvote, the downvote button is overloaded: it can signify disagreement, or it can signify a violation of community standards. I think the former is a poor use of the downvote, as it adds little or no value. What good is it to say you disagree with something, if you offer no reasoning? The whole point of a discussion site like HN is to explore ideas and learn. Downvoting to disagree does nothing to further the goals of the site.

I think HN would be improved by simply eliminating the downvote entirely and rely on upvoting alone, as the parent suggests.

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I liked Slashdot's qualified votes ("Interesting", "Insightful", ..) or Facebook's "reactions" for that as it gives an indication on the meaning of the vote. And sometimes I just want to read the trolls for the lolz.

I don't have enough points or whatever they're called to downvote anyway, but I can't think of anything I wanted to downvote. Either update, ignore, or flag it for moderation (I can't do that on HN either but apparently some can).

If it's not egregious enough for flagging just ignore it and it'll sink to the bottom. No need to downvote.

Getting rid of downvoting in the sense of violating standards without also getting rid of upvoting in terms of agreement would result in popular opinions being promoted, without regard to their value (as an argument, or truthiness).

As much as HN is far from perfect, I still think there's some healthy disagreement visible and bad faith arguments don't get promoted.

...would result in popular opinions being promoted, without regard to their value...

I believe that's the case now. The only difference would be that, if you felt the existing top response was incorrect and there was no better post for you to upvote to try to overtake it, you would have to write one. I think that would be a positive development.

Here's the way I think they should be used:

Up == agreement

Down == disagreement

Flag == violates community standards

I generally try to add a thoughtful response to anything I downvote, but I am guilty of downvoting and moving on a couple of times.

I think requiring a response to downvote would be better than removing downvoting entirely.

... I am guilty of downvoting and moving on a couple of times.

Guilty, guilty, guilty! :-)

Seriously, I think all of us have done it. But for most it's an occasional thing and we wouldn't miss it if downvoting went away, since most of the time we either write an opposing view or upvote an existing one.

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