Is HN negative by design?

Is HN negative by design?(mikealrogers.com)

17 points by mjijackson 14 years ago | 4 comments

No, people just like to share negative news. If there was a downvote button it would be closer to negative by design, but still not. Negative or positive could only be determined by content submitted.imho

JCB_K 14 years ago | |

There is a downvote button, it's just visible after a certain karma threshold, which moves up at the same rate as "karma inflation".

sp332 14 years ago | | |

There's no downvote button on stories. That encourages people to leave negative comments, because they can't express their "negativity" by downvoting.

chris_gogreen 14 years ago | | |

Nice, I better work on my Karma. Thank You!