I think you’re confused as to what upvoting and downvoting are for. The voting system is design to lift up comments that provide value to the discussion, and hide comments that don’t. Someone being downvoted doesn’t mean everyone is disagreeing with them, or punishing them for their opinion, rather just recognizing that it doesn’t bring any value to the topic of conversation.
> Someone being downvoted doesn’t mean everyone is disagreeing with them, or punishing them for their opinion
Regardless of what the rules are, in practice this is exactly how upvoting/downvoting works on sites like Reddit and this one. You can't override basic human nature with loose guidelines.
Voting is primarily a way to express that you agree/disagree without adding a redundant comment. Maybe you're thinking of other sites that are indeed intended to be used that way.
> Maybe you're thinking of other sites that are indeed intended to be used that way.
Do you have an example? It also seems probable that HN intended voting to be used that way as well. The intended use case isn't always what users use something for.
