what those two terms ["noise" and "signal"] mean varies from person to person and may in fact have wildly different meaning to the people voting up or down, but that seems to be the intended effect of the voting arrows

It's probably the ability to aggregate these wildly different meanings in an interesting way that makes the voting system good.

Sometimes just saying "no/yes, I (dis)agree with you" is sufficient and the site is better served by encapsulating these statements into up and down votes rather than encouraging the equivalent of "+1 I agree" messages

That's exactly right.

In this whole area, less is more. Many of the objections and suggestions for changing it strike me as overengineering. Given that the site is the creation of an inveterate minimalist, though, I doubt we have too much to worry about. :)

I would understand the vote, and would still feel interested in engaging. I would view the downvote as a punctuation or an emoticon on your comment. Not a ricochet bullet in my living room.

You forgot about "having to hit each and every individual key used in word formation in the correct order, some keys more than once (and a few several times), having to adhere to reasonable rules of grammar to string the words together into a sentence with meaning, and to remember to stay on topic and respond to the comment rather than slowly drifting off topic into a stream of consciousness, having to maintain visual focus on the screen while typing, and after hitting the reply button, waiting for the comment to refresh, and then another 30-40 minutes refreshing to watch my karma".

I think you assign far too much effort to the task of typing a single sentence.

Downvoting without comment can do far more damage to conversation than can upvoting.

Imagine a real life conversation where you are speaking to another party, as you speak your mind, the other party continuously nods their head yes -- an upvote. You don't particularly feel the need to stop and ask "why do you agree with me?"

While on the other hand if, in the same situation, the other party started nodding their head no - a downvote, you would probably stop and ask them "why do you disagree with me?"

The conventions of this site essentially say that:

a) You can shake your head no, and the speaking party cannot ask why you disagree with them.

b) If the party asks why they are being met with disagreement, the response is the real world equivalent of a beating.

c) If you compare their negative, comment-less disagreement with any other similar situation, the response is a beating.

The result is that, after a couple exchanges like this, a typical person will not bother to speak their mind at all since they may end up with the online equivalent of a beating. Thus we end up with people that don't want to suffer the consequences of speaking out.

For example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1014800

Upvotes are like cake, it encourages people to work for more cake. But people will similarly work to avoid a beating, and non-participation is the easiest path to do so.

No, I'd feel the need to politely excuse myself from that person's company. I have better things to do than blather on to bobble-heads.

"You can shake your head no, and the speaking party cannot ask why you disagree with them."

You can ask why you're downvoted. I've seen that asked and answered many times.

"the response is the real world equivalent of a beating."

The real world equivalent of a beating is a beating.

A downvote is not a beating. A downvote is a stuck out tongue, a disgusted look, a thumbs-down, or a shook head.

I can only assume you've never actually had a real beating or helped tend to the injuries of someone who's actually experienced a beating. Otherwise, I can't imagine why you would use such melodramatic terms to describe the mere act of strangers not following your personal protocols if they dislike one of your comments.

I'm guessing that you participate in remarkably few conversations then, since that just about characterizes every conversation I've ever had.

> You can ask why you're downvoted. I've seen that asked and answered many times.

No you can't, it's even mentioned in the guidelines. You'll also notice that requests like that are usually immediately downvoted, again without comment (or with a link to guidelines). Even requests on somebody else's behalf are treated like raw sewage.

Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

> I can only assume you've never actually had a real beating or helped tend to the injuries of someone who's actually experienced a beating. Otherwise, I can't imagine why you would use such melodramatic terms to describe the mere act of strangers not following your personal protocols if they dislike one of your comments.

The melodrama does not end with me apparently ;)

What I mean by that image is that beatings are usually provided with little commentary, and if commentary is provided, it's usually of the epithet variety. I'm equating the downmod not so much to the beating I suppose but to the abject lack of reasoning as to "why the beating?". Beatings are usually rather senseless and provided without much reasoning.

A comment that's immediately downvoted several times without comment is certainly a comment that's being ganged up on. And I can tell you that when a gang of people has set themselves on somebody, there's usually not a whole lot of interesting conversation during the altercation.

As the words of wisdom go, "Smile...and back away."

Then, more to the point, why don't you oppose voting in general on this site?

The point of HN is to encourage discussion ergo, upvoting is, in general, in line with the point of the site.

I agree that upvoting can also create an echo chamber, but since it doesn't outright suppress contradictory voices, the effect is much less pronounced.