There are plenty of posts on HN that directly "contribute to the discussion," but still get voted down. I think it's more accurate to say a post is down or upvoted on the basis of whether or not the post contributes to the discussion the voters want to read.
Yes, at a minimum it needs to contribute to the discussion. If it doesn't do that, it should get voted down. There are other factors at play that will make people vote something down also; there was a topic/entry here with some interesting suggestions about multi-dimensional ratings (that I can't seem to find the page for it now).
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There are plenty of posts on HN that directly "contribute to the discussion," but still get voted down. I think it's more accurate to say a post is down or upvoted on the basis of whether or not the post contributes to the discussion the voters want to read.
Yes, at a minimum it needs to contribute to the discussion. If it doesn't do that, it should get voted down. There are other factors at play that will make people vote something down also; there was a topic/entry here with some interesting suggestions about multi-dimensional ratings (that I can't seem to find the page for it now).