In case of a down vote on something that seems reasonable
Perhaps it merely indicates that the voter doesn’t agree about the reasonableness. I neither voted on nor—until now—read your comment but I do note that in general many people write things that they (evidently) consider reasonable but which I consider utter nonsense and other have vehemently disagreed with (what seem to me) to be reasonable statements by myself and others. Neither objective reasonableness (to the extent that such a thing exists) nor the belief of the author will force another to perceive it as reasonable.
and/or is non-inflammatory
Not especially inflammatory, true. I note however that you opened with a contradiction, “No.”. That has a clear meaning of asserting the falsity of its parent. If the parent is (perceived to be) correct then a negation may be considered sufficient to downvote the comment with or without reading the remainder.
it’d be informative if someone left a note as to why it was being down voted.
This is a true statement. Another true statement is “Writing declarations of downvotes can be perceived as a nuisance by third parties and promote emnity or at very least dowvnoting by the downvoted author. This is a negative consequence for the downvoter, who is not obliged to abandon his or her anonymity if they don’t chose to.”
Perhaps it merely indicates that the voter doesn’t agree about the reasonableness. I neither voted on nor—until now—read your comment but I do note that in general many people write things that they (evidently) consider reasonable but which I consider utter nonsense and other have vehemently disagreed with (what seem to me) to be reasonable statements by myself and others. Neither objective reasonableness (to the extent that such a thing exists) nor the belief of the author will force another to perceive it as reasonable.
Not especially inflammatory, true. I note however that you opened with a contradiction, “No.”. That has a clear meaning of asserting the falsity of its parent. If the parent is (perceived to be) correct then a negation may be considered sufficient to downvote the comment with or without reading the remainder.
This is a true statement. Another true statement is “Writing declarations of downvotes can be perceived as a nuisance by third parties and promote emnity or at very least dowvnoting by the downvoted author. This is a negative consequence for the downvoter, who is not obliged to abandon his or her anonymity if they don’t chose to.”
Fair enough.