At the risk of flogging a dead horse, and in the interests of honesty, [1] is a comment that I thought was an example of one downvoted unfairly. It wasn't the first one I've seen downvoted where I thought "Why? It seems they just don't agree." And it probably won't be the last. But it is the first and only time where I've questioned the downvoting in a comment [2].
I appreciate you coming back to the thread to give an example. However, the comment appears to no longer be downvoted or flagged.
This illustrates a common misconception about HN's propensity to vote one way or another. Your reply came less than two hours later, whereas the voting isn't complete for a while longer and so the score still has plenty of time to change as the audience continues to process it. This phenomenon (and related handwringing about "is HN reddit now?") can be observed as far back as 2009, and likely even further[1].
You might notice that the comment you replied to (which I would argue is actually demonstrably factually wrong in a few ways, and yet) recovered from its time in the depths beyond. This is likely owing to the fact that it was at least tactfully written, so replies could be written without having to work around the expletive content of the original comment; yours did not, arguably because it was not.
Anyway, this all sort of sidesteps the fact that comment karma was never intended to represent the value of a post or how worthy it is for distribution. It's more like a temperature gauge allowing you to perceive honestly how your comment makes others feel. And disagreement is a feeling too. In the words of 'pg, downvotes have always been used for disagreement.[2]
My first reply to you originally earned one downvote. And I figured it would, from at least one person, but I said it anyway because I believed it should be said. And you have that same ability too. Don't let the numbers get to your head. Just try and have normal conversations with people and the points take care of themselves. (As an example of this, I broke even on my original reply after some time, and gained more in my second reply.) It's rare that people with the ability to read a room and at least attempt to be agreeable in some way end up censured.
Thanks for coming back to this thread! I feel like this became a little more substantive than it was when it began.
"You might notice that the comment you replied to (which I would argue is actually demonstrably factually wrong in a few ways, and yet) recovered from its time in the depths beyond. This is likely owing to the fact that it was at least tactfully written, so replies could be written without having to work around the expletive content of the original comment; yours did not, arguably because it was not."
Yes, I did notice it had been upvoted. The fact that is was no longer gray caused me to question whether it was the comment I was referring to. :-) But it had to be, of course. And so I take your point.
I obviously went off "half-cocked", as I have done a couple of times lately. :-)
Generally speaking I appreciate your points, and I like HN.
Below your [2] link (the PG comment) is one [1] by a petercooper. I think I share petercooper's concerns about downvoting being a means of registering one's disagreement. If your opinions drift too far to the edges of the Overton window, then you stand to be downvoted. I don't like that.
I do take your point that comments that are polite and well formed (so to speak) tend not to be penalised in the long term. I'll watch for that in future.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25737065 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25739135