I think downvoting is an anti-pattern because it's a negative interaction, and I think negative interactions shouldn't be encouraged if we value high quality di

I think downvoting is an anti-pattern because it's a negative interaction, and I think negative interactions shouldn't be encouraged if we value high quality discourse. If downvoting bad comments (for any definition of bad) was harder or even outright impossible you'd still have an alternative: upvote an other, better comment to have it shadow what you consider a less valuable contribution. And that's a positive interaction. Whenever I find a comment that I think is on-topic and somewhat constructive, but I still fundamentally disagree with the take, I generally go hunting for a comment that embraces my point of view (or write one myself) and upvote that. I very rarely downvote comments on this site, and generally only do it for comments that I consider to be completely off topic, flamebait or stupid "meme" references. That being said I do comment quite a bit and I admit that I'm always a bit frustrated when I take the time to write what I consider to be a constructive (if sometimes controversial) comment and I get downvoted reddit-style. It feels disrespectful, almost. I probably care too much about that stuff, I acknowledge that.