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Re:Add Reactions to Pull Requests, Issues, and Comments by joepie91_ on Thursday March 10, 2016 @06:25PM (#11263371)
> And yet, you’re making this point on a platform that has down-votes.

Yes. And if I was a HN developer, which I am not, I would immediately remove that functionality - but even then, my argument doesn't really apply here, because HN isn't really meant to be a constructive platform to begin with.

> I don’t think it’s 100% clear-cut that you should never ever implement downvotes.

For constructive platforms: absolutely, 100%. It's well understood what kind of behaviour is driven by the availability of a semi-anonymous "disagree" button. There's not really any gray area here.

> Other comments might be wildly off-topic or deeply non-constructive, and those I down-vote. But to each their own.

On a constructive platform, that is a matter for moderation, not opinion. The problem of downvotes is that it combines the two, even though they are fundamentally different concepts.

Re:Add Reactions to Pull Requests, Issues, and Comments by RickHull on Thursday March 10, 2016 @08:06PM (#11263914)
What do you mean by constructive platform? In the general sense, HN is absolutely meant to be a constructive platform.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html