Flagging posts and downvoting are important pieces to improving the content here on hacker news. Interestingly, I think this one of the few forums where "trolls" appear to be relatively absent.
One problem I have noticed is innapropriate downvoting. For example, if a voter downvotes a comment simply because he/she disagrees with the opinion of a commenter. How do we encourage a diversity of opinion on a site of like-minded people?
And similarly, how do we prevent "downvote conformity" (I apologize for my invented phraseology, but I'm creating a name for the concept that our community upvotes posts that are generally agreeable and downvotes posts that may be less mainstream, thus imposing a conformity of opinion?)
One problem I have noticed is innapropriate downvoting. For example, if a voter downvotes a comment simply because he/she disagrees with the opinion of a commenter. How do we encourage a diversity of opinion on a site of like-minded people?
And similarly, how do we prevent "downvote conformity" (I apologize for my invented phraseology, but I'm creating a name for the concept that our community upvotes posts that are generally agreeable and downvotes posts that may be less mainstream, thus imposing a conformity of opinion?)