[unabst]

I get it, but this position makes HN definitively anti-free speech. You restrict speech and you restrict how people think. Calibrating speech is not free speech and neither is fading speech.

> the community signals that it has found something wrong with a comment.

A bully fat shaming would be "the community signaling that there is something wrong". The HN equivalent would be PC shaming.

What someone thinks of something has no bearing on right or wrong. Also "the community" isn't downvoting. It's always an individual.

A sincere course correcting response is the simple and natural fix, and what already happens. Downvoting helps with reducing responses, but comments are people. People do not enjoy being reduced.

> extremely important for calibrating users' perceptions of the community

I have enough experience now that I can write in HN mode. I cannot however, think in HN mode. I try, but whenever I think, comments like this one happens. This comment also violates the "ideology battle" clause from the HN guidelines because I am not allowed to fight for free speech. But stories about politics and ideologies make the top page all the time, and aren't most good disagreements ideological? Tabs versus spaces, React versus Vue, Open versus Closed source. Downvoting.

The technical part is never that deep. The deepest it can get is deeply technical.

With all that said, everything else about HN is the best on the internet hands down.

[pjc50]

> I get it, but this position makes HN definitively anti-free speech

This is absolutely necessary to have a community. The moderation, both centralised in dang and distributed among the downvoters, is what makes HN HN and not a chan board. Removing comments deemed "bad" and thereby discouraging people from posting them in the first place adds value to the site.

It is far from perfect, but it's better than nothing.

> People do not enjoy being reduced.

No, but people don't enjoy being insulted either, and nor do they enjoy the "oh not this again" feeling that makes them reach for the downvote button in the first place.

(Disclaimer: I'm #24 in HN karma and #32 on electronics.stackexchange, so undoubtedly count as deeply embedded with the ""establishment"" downvoting all the edgy rebels)

[alacombe]

> This is absolutely necessary to have a community.

Do you want a community/bubble or be open to other's idea ?

[unabst]

If it's far from perfect, let's improve it. It's not downvote or nothing.

Downvotes are meant to tame the insults and offensive comments. But what if downvotes themselves are insulting and offensive? Are there really no other options?

But the even deeper issue is that this may be the HN the moderators want, and it does sound like it is.

Deeper issues are often ideological discussions. Yet, ideological battles are not to be fought on HN.

But the ideology needs to be settled before technical solutions can commence. Implementing a better downvote or an alternative is a technical problem. Deciding to do so requires ideological decisions, such as, prioritize free speech.