Yes, different sides of the argument is definitely what makes a thread interesting. I think downmodding comments that people disagree with needs to be discouraged. I'm guessing people have become accustomed to doing this on other sites like Reddit, but that's not what it's for here.
>"I think downmodding comments that people disagree with needs to be discouraged."
i completely agree. it might explain this in the guidelines, but it needs to be written right where people evaluate. maybe the first time someone votes they get a pop-up with the vote guidelines, kind of like sudo. it pops again once every two months as a reminder.
it's really hard not to see voting as opinion tallying rather than comment goodness. that's what voting is used for everywhere else.
