I'm no saint, I've definitely been guilty of a "spite downvote" when I've let my anger and frustration get the better of me, especially in my earlier days of co

I'm no saint, I've definitely been guilty of a "spite downvote" when I've let my anger and frustration get the better of me, especially in my earlier days of commenting, both here and elsewhere. I don't think I've done it in a long time though and hopefully never will again. I did however the other day accuse animal lovers of acting like "fucking militants" and quite rightly got flagged for it. I'm a work in progress and striving to be better and I think that's all you can ask of anyone really. We're all at various stages of development and none of us know what's going on in the life of the people we're talking to. You could be speaking to a teenager with very little life experience who's just ignorant and doesn't really understand the consequences of the position they're arguing for or you could have someone in the 60s who's just lost their spouse and had their whole life come crashing down around them. Downvoting is going to help neither of these people, but leaving a comment might. In the case of the former, what's obvious to you isn't so obvious to them, so you can help enlighten. In the case of the latter, sometimes if you can say the right thing or ask the right question it can help them right themselves. It doesn't even have to be that extreme, I've had plenty of debates on here that end up arriving at a point of mutual agreement which is always nice and often leads to growth on both sides.