I personally agree that the downvote button should be reserved for low quality comments rather than disagreement and that the diverse and high-quality comments are what makes this site and community awesome. Unfortunately neither the FAQ nor the Guidelines state anything about how to use the vote buttons. So how should HN users know when to use them? Is there even consent anymore (or ever has been?) that downvotes should not be used for disagreement? How did I form the opinion that downvotes should be reserved for low quality rather than disagreement? Somehow along the lines of contributing enough to this site to reach enough karma to downvote.

Maybe the guidelines should add a section on how to vote. On the other hand, how can this really be enforced?

It's a sad thing. I also stopped posting opinions that might trigger disagreement from a large majority.

However, the guidlines clearly state:

> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills. [1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html