I’m very curious about the reasoning different people use when deciding to downvote a post or comment. Often, when something gets “heavily” downvoted, the OP will ask some variation of “why the downvotes?”. This is sometimes answered with sincere criticism, but sometimes is received even more poorly than the original offending post.
Do you downvote people who ask “why the downvotes?”? What informs the decision?
Defending a comment on the basis of free speech is the last bastion of the intellectually bankrupt. If your best defense could just as easily be used to justify saying a string of random words, then what you’re saying carries exactly the same weight as nonsense. I would downvote that.