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Re:Welcome to HN. Please, read 'Hacker News Guidelines.' We... by po on Saturday December 05, 2009 @08:54PM (#978985)

If "downmod" has a more potent effect than "disagree" people will use that instead. The reason people downmod things they disagree with is because they want to censor an opinion that goes against their world view. Unfortunately, few will click disagree if the result is to make the disagreeable opinion even more visible.

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Re:Welcome to HN. Please, read 'Hacker News Guidelines.' We... by rbanffy on Saturday December 05, 2009 @09:07PM (#979003)

What if a downvote costs some karma while a disagree doesn't? That could make the numberic karma indicator work as a motivational force for good.

And no. I promise I won't downvote stuff I disagree with in order to get a 1337 karma ;-)

I am not sure if we can avoid this specific problem without a metamoderation system like Slashdot.

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Re:Welcome to HN. Please, read 'Hacker News Guidelines.' We... by whatusername on Sunday December 06, 2009 @07:32PM (#980422)

The problem is that then downvote is for spam/junk. Why would I want to suffer a penalty to make the site better for others (I've already seen the spam).

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Re:Welcome to HN. Please, read 'Hacker News Guidelines.' We... by rbanffy on Monday December 07, 2009 @07:24AM (#981073)

You would make the site better for yourself in the future. You can also use the flag link to mark things that are utterly offensive.

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