On HN, it's completely appropriate to use downvote for disagreement (this has came up over and over again, but I doubt it's gonna change). Generally, I tried not to downvote for just disagreement, but melling's comment is pretty much the text book sample of the middlebrow dismissal, or gratuitously negative that we try to avoid.
I was not one of those who downvoted you. And on further reading of your comments, it looks like you are commenting on the political climate of our society (no one cares about space/ science etc.), rather than specific engineering ability of the probe/ the team involves.
It is a popular sentiment, and I can say that a lot of us would agree with it. But your original comment read very much like belittling the current Pluto mission, which is a different thing and very much not welcomed here. I mean, we even try not to complain too much for the 10000 JS frameworks being posted here, let alone another probe in space.
While I agree with your first paragraph, I have issues with sweeping statements as to which viewpoints are welcome here. While I, as stated, disagree with melling's opinion in this matter, he is more than welcome to have it and make it known. Just as those who don't agree, through downvote or response, are welcome to their view.
I don't agree with him there, because unpopular opinions should still be expressible. The downvote allows you to suppress opinions that you don't agree with which I don't think fits with the spirit of discourse that a good community should have. If someone says something inflammatory, suppress it. If someone says something you don't agree with, disagree with it.
Is it time we move on and form our own opinion about the use of the downvote as a community instead of always deferring by quoting pg, whilst whose values and contributions are obvious, has only posted 1 comment[1] (and no submissions[2]) since his last active day 475 days ago?[3]
"IIRC we first had this conversation about a month after launch.
Downvotes have always been used to express disagreement. Or more
precisely, a negative score has: users seem not to downvote
something they disagree with if it already has a sufficiently
negative score."
Out of curiosity, do you consider it acceptable to downvote a message for not contributing to the conversation, even if it is technically on topic? I try to follow official policies, but I confess that I often just think of voting as a general way to express my opinion of how a comment contributes to the quality of the discussion.
The bigger issue is that people with negative reactions are more likely to downvote than those willing to upvote on touchy subjects. That creates an imbalance and everyone has to be careful not to upset the hypersensitive SJWs as a result. The same human tendency accounts for the imbalance in online reviews.
