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Comment by ed209 | Hacker News Reader

I do care about karma.

I care because it's a measure of whether what I say is agreeable or disagreeable. It's not about fitting in or following the herd, but if I say something that loses me karma I want to understand why. Maybe I'll end up with the same opinion anyway or maybe it teaches me to think more before I talk. Mostly, karma helps me reflect on my opinions and question those opinions.

The only thing I would do with HN is to _force people to comment when they downvote_

If you agree with me, then an upvote with no commentary is fine. If you downvote me, tell me why. Maybe I could learn something, maybe I get the chance to explain myself better, maybe an open disagreement on a point enriches the community.

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... And much of the time, I think asking for a comment with a down vote is a good idea.

Except, there are obvious trolls. Or someone else has already explained why the comment was inappropriate.

It happens enough that the reason for the downvote seems—to me—facially clear ... so while I agree it's a good courtesy in most situations, I don't think enforcing it would help. Maybe a UI change could encourage this behavior (e.g., highlight "reply" on downvote), but this loses some of the clean look of HN ...

Maybe if it's out of band somewhere. If comments are not worth reading (IMHO the purpose of downvoting) I would usually prefer not to plow through subthreads explaining why.

The only thing I would do with HN is to _force people to comment when they downvote_

How do you prevent a: 'Downvoted for being moronic->No, you are' kind of thread?

You mean in a situation where a comment is out of order, abusive, or some other obviously bad comment?

I guess if comments were forced on downvotes, let's say "I downvoted you for being a moron" than instead of leaving your own version of "you're a moron" you could add your weight to the first downvote-comment.

So like downvoting with a comment, but kind of adding your weighting to someone elses downvote for the same reason.

Despite occasional complaints from users being down-voted, I have appreciated that in most cases when a user is down-voted and asked for an explanation he is given it.

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