There are hints of unusual voting dynamics on that post, on both sides. Looking at karma counts and vote totals, I think there’s a good possibility that a few people on each side were voting from the hip in ways I don’t think are great. If I recall correctly, ~10% of all karmavotes are downvotes—which doesn’t suggest there is a broad-scope downvoting problem here. My suspicion—which is hard to prove without non-public data—is that a lot of the posts with iffy downvoting also have iffy upvoting, and the latter may often cancel the former out (or even exceed it!) on net.
Whether people should explain downvotes has been discussed before. The argument against has been stated thusly: “Downvotes aren’t primarily to help the person being downvoted. They help other readers, which after all there are many more of than writers. Creating an expectation that they should all be explained increases the burden on the downvoter significantly, making them less likely to be used and therefore less useful.”
I’ve argued before that the system should solicit an anonymous explanation for strong downvotes, as they can have an outsized impact on karma count. (Note that I use those rarely, and did not do so here.) Moreover, I think it is reasonable to expect a strong downvoter to have a clear, articulable justification for that action. I don’t think that is so for ordinary downvotes. Furthermore, if the Forum implemented a low-friction way to explain ordinary downvotes, it probably wouldn’t be particularly helpful (e.g., someone clicked “weak reasoning” on my post, what does that mean?). If the way was not low-friction, it would disrupt the current balance between upvotes and downvotes (which I think is on average about the right balance).
I can’t explain other people’s vote—only my own.
There are hints of unusual voting dynamics on that post, on both sides. Looking at karma counts and vote totals, I think there’s a good possibility that a few people on each side were voting from the hip in ways I don’t think are great. If I recall correctly, ~10% of all karmavotes are downvotes—which doesn’t suggest there is a broad-scope downvoting problem here. My suspicion—which is hard to prove without non-public data—is that a lot of the posts with iffy downvoting also have iffy upvoting, and the latter may often cancel the former out (or even exceed it!) on net.
Whether people should explain downvotes has been discussed before. The argument against has been stated thusly: “Downvotes aren’t primarily to help the person being downvoted. They help other readers, which after all there are many more of than writers. Creating an expectation that they should all be explained increases the burden on the downvoter significantly, making them less likely to be used and therefore less useful.”
I’ve argued before that the system should solicit an anonymous explanation for strong downvotes, as they can have an outsized impact on karma count. (Note that I use those rarely, and did not do so here.) Moreover, I think it is reasonable to expect a strong downvoter to have a clear, articulable justification for that action. I don’t think that is so for ordinary downvotes. Furthermore, if the Forum implemented a low-friction way to explain ordinary downvotes, it probably wouldn’t be particularly helpful (e.g., someone clicked “weak reasoning” on my post, what does that mean?). If the way was not low-friction, it would disrupt the current balance between upvotes and downvotes (which I think is on average about the right balance).