You are absolutely correct, of course. My apologies.<p>Let me offer my opinion on where this sort of thing comes from.<p>Why would someone say something like that?<p>Well, because voting on HN (and other platforms) is still broken.  People will down-vote you simply because they don&#x27;t like what you are saying or if you are saying something that paints a different light on their hero, ideology, etc.  It has nothing whatsoever to do with the strength or quality of the argument at all.  And, because of this, it also does not open the doors for discussions.<p>For those of us who might not align with the most prevalent culture on HN (pick a topic, there&#x27;s a favored ideology) this can be rather frustrating at times.  You have rules for all sorts of things but no enforceable rules for when and how to down-vote and people don&#x27;t have to justify their down-vote in any way at all.  I have the ability to down-vote yet I don&#x27;t remember when and if I have ever exercised it.  Because, for the most part, I don&#x27;t feel it is a fair system.<p>Personally, I think down-voting ought to be eliminated because it is conducive to emotional or ideological abuse, particularly by the younger members of the audience.  Up-voting is a far more positive type of engagement and one where if you don&#x27;t like the argument you simply do nothing about it or pick the one you think might be better.  With software limiting such things as rate-of-voting and mass up-voting one could make it far more civil.  For example, a reader might get only two or five up-votes per thread or some such thing.<p>Sometimes you look at topics where, perhaps, you&#x27;d like to contribute some experience and the first thought is &quot;crap, if I write anything on this I am going to be showered with down-votes&quot; and that&#x27;s where, sometimes, making that comment comes from.<p>I would urge you to view such comments not as rules violations but rather a symptom of something that might need to be addressed.<p>Facebook is dealing with this right now with their like&#x2F;don&#x27;t-like voting system.  Their reasons and platform are different, of course.<p>Learning does not happen when everyone agrees with you.  A healthy dose of counterpoint is how you learn.  I know it&#x27;s difficult to manage these kinds of fora, I&#x27;ve done it in the past, back in USENET days, and it was a nightmare.  Your job isn&#x27;t easy.  Just take what I said as constructive criticism and nothing more.  HN is excellent, so you are doing something right.<p>Thanks.