> “but I don't agree with the "just as much" part, at least not within the bounds of certain topics or sub-threads. It takes an effort to see just that HN.”

Our experiences just seem to differ on this. When I’m reading other comments or threads on HN, I see it all the time, in many threads per day, spanning a huge range of topics.

> “but I do know I ultimately feel worse when I am the character in the xkcd cartoon who won't leave the computer because "someone is wrong on the Internet".”

For me, I think that the criticism of that XKCD comic is very shallow when people use it to denigrate someone who just happens to be interested in disagreement and the resolution of it. In an Aumann’s Agreement Theorem sense, as you become closer to the approximation of a rational agent, you might expect to stick it out even in minor disagreements more and more, realizing that “agree to disagree” should be saved for an escape valve when the conversation turns uncivil... but that prior to that, extended disagreement is actually a good thing.

It’s lazy and sloppy IMO to use the line “someone is wrong on the internet” as a glib criticism towards somebody that actually cares about sticking out a disagreement with civil conversation.

In that sense, because I take great pains to be civil even if I am attacked during a disagreement, I would never feel like I am a model of that XKCD cartoon, and in fact would find it thoughtless and lazy if someone else projected that onto me or anyone who is intellectually sincere about enjoying disagreement discussions online.

> “I'd say that this reservation (certainly the more severe guidelines violations) is appropriate for flagging, not (just) downvoting.”

I disagree but I doubt we can find a specific resolution in the guidelines. I view flagging as being reserved for comments that are uncivil, bullying or harmful, and never ever for anything else. Moderation does a good enough job that flagging for off-topic is generally unnecessary and usually is revealed quickly in comments anyway.

When a comment is expressing a disagreeable attitude, it would rarely be good to downvote it. Downvoting is more to downweight purely political comments, comments that are obviously just self-promotional or intended to influence readers towards a certain product, inappropriate jokes or non sequiturs that would distract, and sometimes uncivil comments (though flagging is better).

I don’t actually mind that much that people on HN use votes to push agendas about what to talk about. I just think HN users vote for popularity or downvote what they don’t like just as much as anywhere else. They don’t take any type of “more enlightened” stance on it than other communities. This isn’t a judgmental comment, just an observation.

> “Considering there was only one other participant in the long chain, that's a strange characterization.“

Why is it strange? What does the number of participants have to do with it?

> “In particular, the one that ends "Assume good faith" (suggesting disclaimers are unneeded)”

It says to assume the strongest plausible interpretation, which I believe that I did, even after going back and re-reading the parent comments. Sometimes somebody unambiguously says X, you respond disagreeing with X, and then they backtrack and claim they really meant Y. That’s not what the guidelines are talking about. They are talking about that first interpretation of X and being charitable. I absolutely think I met that criteria based on the original comment.

> “I'll personally tend to downvote comments that bring ideology into what had previously been a practical discussion”

This is a slippery slope though, because from my point of view my whole line of discussion is meant to be totally about pragmatism. The original advice of cultivating a general culture where complaints are discouraged if they don’t come with proposed solutions is not pragmatic advice, because of the danger that such a policy institutionalizes procedure for continuing to harm or marginalize certain groups. This could take the form of making a team member feel his or her voice is not heard in simple team meetings, or could take the form of discouraging harassment claims, and many things in between.

Just because a discussion might take into account some dimension of a desired moral outcome, that does not mean it “brings ideology into it” any more so than how practically any claim of any type ultimately relies on some type of ideology about economic assumptions, utilitarianism, rationality, reductionism, moral philosophy, population ethics, sovereignty, etc. etc.

Applying a “don’t bring ideology into this” criticism to my comments here seems totally unfair, as if to bend that part of the guideline to pick and choose disagreements you merely don’t happen to like, and use the guideline to argue it’s ok to downvote or flag them. You could practically argue that anything beyond the most ultraspecific comments can be said to bring some type of ideology into it, if you wanted. But clearly the guideline is about cases when comments try to steer the discussion into territory that’s only about the ideological debate.