Comments do get downvoted on HN.
The question is, what kind of HN participant upvotes a comment like that? Who is deciding that that was a comment worth promoting, and why?
The question is, what kind of HN participant upvotes a comment like that? Who is deciding that that was a comment worth promoting, and why?
After upvoting your comment, I will answer your question. It occurs to me, because of, um, examples I have seen, that sometimes a person who has no personal knowledge of what the underlying facts are (that is, whether TechCrunch is a good citizen of the Valley or a bad citizen shot through with conflicts of interest) may upvote a comment that appears to differ from the HN consensus just to bring that dissenting view to prominence in the discussion, the better to encourage people who know facts about the matter (pro or con) to speak to those facts. In any one thread, I have at most one upvote (or downvote) for each comment, so I'm never completely sure if I'm part of the thread consensus or part of a mistaken group of outliers if I vote in a thread where I don't post. In many threads, I plainly don't know enough to vote either up or down on disputed factual matters (and thus don't vote), but I try to read in lurk mode and learn something. Maybe some people who upvoted the offensive comment in this thread, whoever they were, were "upvoting for disagreement," just as some people submit articles for disagreement, Even though the consensus here is that submitting a story endorses a story, and upvoting a comment implies agreement with the comment, there are definitely some participants here who submit or who upvote to provoke critical comment from other participants.
PS: i didnt upvote this article and didnt find it any good. As regular HNer, I am just alarmed by opinions to walk into "fascism".