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Re:The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wron... by bhupy on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @06:26PM (#26813872)
I'm not sure why spam should be treated any differently than conversational indecency (personal attacks, bad faith arguing); in theory it could all fall under the bucket of "this doesn't belong here", right?
Re:The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wron... by tremon on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @06:38PM (#26813973)
To me the difference is "this user doesn't belong here, go away" versus "this post doesn't belong here, try harder".
Re:The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wron... by Sohcahtoa82 on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @06:57PM (#26814145)
Personally, I flag for blatant rule violations such as comments that are filled with personal attacks or spam.

I will downvote comments that are simply low quality, like comments that merely say "^ This!". I don't usually downvote bad faith arguing because it's hard to prove when someone is arguing in bad faith versus just simply having bad arguments.

Re:The value of downvoting, or, how Hacker News gets it wron... by type0 on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @07:04PM (#26814211)
> when someone is arguing in bad faith versus just simply having bad arguments.

Sometimes the person just misinterprets the conversation, especially if not being a native english speaker, but the responses could get overly harsh and that's a pity because I'd like to see more international discussions here.