So only people who can downvote are those that agree with each other? Surely a cursory examination of unintended side-effects was done - it is HN, right?
A mandatory comment as to why someone -1'ed a post should be mandatory. Unless someone is intentionally being abusive/troll, then perhaps we should engage in the lesser popular viewpoints. Not doing so creates one hell of an echo chamber.
EDIT: currently at -1. You're only proving my point, buddy.
You can't downvote replies to your comments. So you are at -1 with no influence on my part. :)
I'm not sure mandatory comments would solve the problem. We'd get plenty of the "I disagree." comments. Could those then be downvoted? Does downvoting those upvote the parent? Could I downvote both. Etc.
I don't know the current threshold but increasing it doesn't create an echo chamber. Look at any thread about gun control in the US and you will a lot downvoted comments on both sides and presumably a lot of highly upvoted comments on both sides as well. Not only that but you can only downvote comments until they reach a certain age. You can upvote them much longer (perhaps forever?). This creates a bias toward increasing votes which itself is a good reason to occasionally adjust the thresholds.
A mandatory comment as to why someone -1'ed a post should be mandatory. Unless someone is intentionally being abusive/troll, then perhaps we should engage in the lesser popular viewpoints. Not doing so creates one hell of an echo chamber.
EDIT: currently at -1. You're only proving my point, buddy.