call him/her out on it and say why. Often, it's really hard to do this without starting a petty meta-argument. It can be hard to call someone out and maintain

call him/her out on it and say why. Often, it's really hard to do this without starting a petty meta-argument. It can be hard to call someone out and maintain focus on the topics people actually want to read about. For example, I have downvoted people for complaining about getting downvotes. Sometimes I explain, if I can do it in a way that I think adds real value to the discussion, but really: it's in the guidelines. Nobody wants to see someone complain about downvotes and then see me complain about the complaining, which can easily start a flamewar. So I downvote and move on. Another example is prefacing a sentence with "look,". This is almost always condescending and unnecessary in written communication. If I really think people would appreciate an explanation of why this is condescending I will explain, but usually doing that will distract from the real discussion. Sometimes really lazy posts with blatant logical fallacies and lack of substance get a downvote without a comment. Because really, if there's no substance then what is there to comment about?