Can HN not get caught up in the drama of reddit? Please. (Btw, instead of just down voting because you disagree, how about you try to discuss why you think being caught up in the drama is a good thing)
Generally, any time there's a frenzy of copycat stories, the approach that works best for HN is (a) to settle on (hopefully) the most substantive version of the story for discussion, (b) downweight the follow-ups, and (c) have a new thread if significant new information arises. I don't think the current story passes that last test, though it's perhaps interesting how people are seizing on it.
Btw, the HN rules ask you not to complain about downvotes in comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
I still find it interesting, though
You are the one who seems to be caught up on the drama by taking sides .
I do not participate often because I do not have the ability to contribute my opinion when I want to downvote, and then I get turned off from the discussion thread. Voting is an easy way to keep comment sections concise while allowing everyone to participate. I appreciate concise threads because I'm an engineer and don't want to spend all day rereading the same thoughts in different voices. In short, I want to downvote, I can't, and then I just stop reading and close the thread.
I would be happy if I could just push the down arrow and have it contribute, say, negative .2 points, or some amount scaled according to my current points status.
I doubt anyone cares enough about users on HN to make such a change, but maybe someone will see this and incorporate it on some future comments board. Thanks for reading.