PPPS: Thanks for those who voted back up. Would be nice to know the reasons for down votes still. Wouldn't it be quite easy to prompt a down voter for a reason and display that reason. Thus encouraging responsible downvoting?
I kind of wish there were a link you could click on each post to see a list of the people who downvoted it.
I don't expect that to ever be added and I can imagine many ways in which it would backfire, but nothing annoys me more than silent downvotes (downvotes but no responses) to posts that are perfectly reasonable if maybe mildly controversial.
If you disagree with a post (that isn't just obviously a troll or otherwise clearly meant to be offensive) enough to downvote, respond with why, it is much more useful for everyone that way.
Okay, fine. I downvoted you because you seem to be blaming him for answering a direct question and also for saying it's women's problem when he said it was management's responsibility.
I can't tell for sure if you're actually blaming him or explaining yourself in a confusing way, but both of those are bad.
You make valid points, but the way you tied them into the conversation makes your point confusing and/or non-sequitur-insulting, so I think it's a bad comment.
Can you see from my point of view though. That while making a valid comment which didn't include flamebait or hate etc. I see my comment goes to zero and is greyed out. It's pretty disheartening and unwelcoming to have that done to you. I apologise to others about this 'meta'-conversation but I do think it matters - as it genuinely discourages me from sharing my thoughts and may do the same to otehrs.
I get somewhat annoyed when a comment of mine is downvoted but I think you're taking it too strongly. Sometimes people don't like valid comments. And especially since votes fluctuate, don't worry about an initial downvote.
And I don't really agree with "down-voting someone is like flagging them". I only flag the rare completely indefensible troll/spambot comments.
Comments about downvoting are [almost always nearly] content-free. The way to battle bad downvoting is just to upvote content that deserves to be promoted.
