>Too many people come here from reddit with the mentality that downvote is for disagreement.
I'm not so sure about that.
I came from Reddit too, however I've been here for months now, and I still can't downvote anyone. From what I'm told, you need a karma of 1000 to get that ability. I can only upvote.
So, you have to be a longtime HNer to even have this ability to silence other peoples' opinions. You cannot be some newbie here and downvote people, unless you hit the karma jackpot by making a few posts that get hundreds and hundreds of upvotes.
Therefore, I think it's much more likely that what you're seeing (dissenting opinions being downvoted) is coming from both the heavy-handed non-transparent moderators, and from others in their "inner circle" of longtime members.
> Therefore, I think it's much more likely that what you're seeing (dissenting opinions being downvoted) is coming from both the heavy-handed non-transparent moderators, and from others in their "inner circle" of longtime members.
???
There is no such group on HN. Where are you getting this idea? (Look at my karma score and date joined - if there was such a group I'd know about it by now.)
And on top of that there are tons of users who can downvote, you don't have to be part of some mythical inner circle.
I'm not so sure about that.
I came from Reddit too, however I've been here for months now, and I still can't downvote anyone. From what I'm told, you need a karma of 1000 to get that ability. I can only upvote.
So, you have to be a longtime HNer to even have this ability to silence other peoples' opinions. You cannot be some newbie here and downvote people, unless you hit the karma jackpot by making a few posts that get hundreds and hundreds of upvotes.
Therefore, I think it's much more likely that what you're seeing (dissenting opinions being downvoted) is coming from both the heavy-handed non-transparent moderators, and from others in their "inner circle" of longtime members.