Nice reference. I'll bet you most people (myself included) now assume that disagreeing with someone is not the point of downvoting them. Personally, I downvote

Nice reference. I'll bet you most people (myself included) now assume that disagreeing with someone is not the point of downvoting them. Personally, I downvote when I think something is inappropriate or doesn't add to the discussion (i.e. "me too" responses). Considering that PG indicates that a downvote is okay for disagreement, but that his post is from about four months ago, I wonder if there even exists a "standard" for downvoting behavior now. I've been visiting the site for awhile but only created an account a few months ago, so I didn't pay too much attention to this before I joined; I haven't been actively participating long enough to know how downvoting behavior has changed over time. Is there a new or updated guideline for downvoting? Either way, as I've mentioned before, guidelines are just that: you can't force someone to not downvote inappropriately. It's just the nature of this sort of community. I think if people focussed more on not posting things that are out of line that get hella-downvoted instead of worrying about whether they have hit four digits of positive karma, things might be a little more laid back and people wouldn't stress so much. Either way, as long as there is karma, people will bitch about it one way or another ;-) (Note: not dissing four-digit karma. If you have that much, you've earned it. Just saying that maybe people worry a bit too much about getting positive karma instead of avoiding negative karma.)