Ask HN: Is it okay to downvote without explaining why?
I tend to downvote cases where someone is using very toxic attitudes or disingenuously endorsing toxic things under the guise of fair inquiry.<p>This can take the form of “citation needed” or “sources please” bad faith sniped requests for “evidence.” It can also take the form of overtly abusive attitudes, defending things like misogyny or defending repression of different classes of people, for example if someone said something like, “I don’t feel like I have to make my heterosexual identity widely known at work, so I think people with a homosexual identity also should keep it to themselves.” This sort of thing is masqueraded as fair and balanced or “just an opinion” to make it seem like it deserves equal footing or equal consideration, but really this sort of thing is flagrantly uncivil and harmful, and dressing it up like it’s some innocuous comment is one of the worst parts.<p>Unfortunately, I can’t always explain my reasoning for these sorts of downvotes, because the community guidelines of HN are often very, very unfairly enforced, giving a free pass to things that are genuinely horrible yet reprimanding any follow-up comments that call those people out on their toxic bullshit. Sometimes the comments are so bad that I’ll take the risk of misplaced moderator admonition. But usually I just downvote &amp; move on.<p>On technical topics, I will downvote things if they appear uncharitably one-sided or unfairly ridiculing an alternative on unfair grounds. For example I see this a ton in posts focusing on Nim &amp; Julia, where instead of just dispassionately mentioning preferences or benefits, the posts go further to unfairly deride alternatives or make straw man comparisons.<p>I think downvoting is actually quite important for keeping bad commentary off of HN. Very sincerely, there’s a lot of commentary here that is one small step removed from The Red Pill or MRA toxicity, and unfortunately the site guidelines allow it to be treated as if it’s innocuous and fair &#x2F; civil discourse.<p>I really worry a great deal for HN. As a site that aims to set high standards for community participation, it paints a bleak picture of societal discourse at large and in fact people who stand up for basic social norms and respect are the ones who get unfairly downvoted and admonished.