Thoughtfulness has little correlation to the quality of a comment. A one-liner from a subject matter expert is worth more than an entire paragraph of mere hearsay.
I think one liners, unless they are reminders of something that's universally obvious, are worse than no comment at all, because they can't contain much information.
On Reddit, since they added in the "suppress entire thread once the parent goes below -4", yes. On HN, which never suppresses the thread, no. I for one occasionally check even the -8 posts, though usually if you make it to -8 it's for a reason. I've "rescued" a few -3s with replies before.
On reddit stupid stuff usually gets a plus vote, and people express agree/disagree via votes.
This is NOT the way HN is run, and people coming here from reddit have a hard time adjusting. So we need threads like this approximately monthly.
Maybe PG can require all new members to read some kind of etiquette guide (with a quiz).
I’d guess that by the time the downvote button shows up, most people should have had time to realize HN generally offers more interesting discussion because it works the way Reddiquette FAQ says Reddit should work: do not downvote points of view.
// Now I’ll go back to lurking.
It seems more correct to downvote those posts or replies that do not follow the vein of intellectual conversation that HN tries to promote, those comments that distract you from the main topic instead of giving you more info to chew on.
Similarly, those that do make you think, whether you agree or not, have contributed to the conversation and should not be downvoted. If you only wanted correct comments, then this wouldn't be a conversation, it would be going over what you already know, saying out loud what you read in a book or just plain brain masturbation.
Let's have a conversation.