Even saying "it would be better if you did X in node Y" is a criticism of the author of the node. It is likely a much more polite and less personal criticism than most and so is easier for the author to take well.

If you accompany it with a downvote (and tell the author you have done so), then you have "added injury to insult" and made it much more likely that the author will take it personally or otherwise poorly. The author has reason for that, especially if your downvote cost the author one XP, IMO.

As I said, I don't feel justified in downvoting a node simply because "it would be better if you did X" in it. That is a reason to reply (or perhaps /msg the author).

I guess that since I sometimes downvote a node because it is rated higher than some "better" node in the same thread, there are cases where I don't expect the author to take the downvote personally. But part of why I think the author can manage to not take such a downvote personally is because it is a downvote on a node with positive reputation (higher than some other node with positive rep) and so is less likely to cost an XP and is late enough after the node was posted that the rep change is also unlikely to be noticed.

Calling their attention to the downvote by mentioning it to them removes this posibility and I find it quite expected that it also makes it likely that the author will take such an announced downvote badly.

I hope and believe that when a "compensating" downvote is noticed, the impact is much lower. I certainly hear few complaints about such and find them much easier to take on the rare occasions when I notice them.

                - tye

In reply to Re^6: /msg me the reason of -- (sucks eq sucks) by tye
in thread /msg me the reason of -- by Jenda

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