I wanted to take a moment to discuss these practices. I noticed other subreddits often times hide the downvote button, but given I'm an accountant and not a code, I have no idea where to even begin to learn where to do this and bring it up for discussion.

So instead lets talk about what we think deserves an upvote, downvote, etc, here at /r/ask_politics. I've always tried to vote in accordance with our guidelines - if a top-tier vote is lacking is sources, I downvote. If its not a serious reply, I'll usually remove and you should report. You can read the rest if you haven't already.

But what got me is that there was a reply to this thread asking why minimum wage isn't indexed to inflation. One of the replies, which has been devoted into obsurity, linked to a report stating that if the original minimum wage was indexed to inflation, it'd be $4 and some change. I couldn't believe it, so I checked the link (was good) and double checked the basic math using two sources on the internet. And it was right.

So why was this downvoted? The only thing I could think is that it was an fact that people did not like. We've all seen this pattern and can see it in stark display over at /r/politics. This kind of rubs me the wrong way, though.

He made a valid and accurate point, although I could drive a truck through the holes in the logic underlying it. But should I downvote or should I reply, challenging his assertion? To me, its the latter.

But what does the community think?

Now, ending speaking as a mod, here's my personal thought:

Upvote for a well-sourced, on-point, top-tier comment. I would generally only downvote if the comment was not sourced and sounds more like opinion than fact.

And then there's reporting, but I'll leave that to all of you to discuss.