I think it’s identical here on HN. Upvoting, downvoting, and using flagging to suppress contrary opinions is rampant and has a huge negative impact toward discussion. I think it’s just the topic du jour on HN is less escalated (usually opinions of tech choices) so it doesn’t seem as extreme.
> using flagging to suppress contrary opinions is rampant and has a huge negative impact toward discussion
I've had showdead turned on for years and have rarely seen contrary opinions flagged, if ever.
The main things I see flagged are personal attacks, open bigotry, flaming, etc. Occasionally I used to see anti-CCP comments flagged, but I haven't seen that in a while. I'd be interested to see some examples where you think something was unjustly flagged.
By that same token, the vast majority of downvoted comments I see are just...irritating. They're not usually overly bigoted, they're not more contrary than other, less irritating comments that aren't downvoted, they're just really annoying to read and engage with.
It is not as bad on HN. I mean, we disagree right now, right?
It is not about technical topics but about the persons. HN got better discussion climate about the Israel-Hamas war too, then say Reddit.
On some half-obvious corporate shill post I've gotten some 'unfair' (according to me) grey out down votes for being critical, where it was obvious that none but shills would care enough to downvote. So the problem do exist, but it ain't too bad.
I’ve had my spicy posts get downvoted within 10 seconds of me making the post. Impossible for that to always be organic. Glad others observe this here. Dang will of course deny this happens, but it is happening for sure.
Most spicy comments get rapid downvotes, and it's organic.
I know mine do.
Long time HN readers frequently load https://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments to see where the interesting conversations are happening right now .. and they pretty much all reflexively downvote comments that appear to be rude or attacking other users directly rather than discussing their positions.
I think it’s identical here on HN. Upvoting, downvoting, and using flagging to suppress contrary opinions is rampant and has a huge negative impact toward discussion. I think it’s just the topic du jour on HN is less escalated (usually opinions of tech choices) so it doesn’t seem as extreme.