I thought about this. Here is what I came up with.
If you upvote, and had to reply saying the same thing because you agree no new information is presented. Thus simply upvoting is needed.
But if you downvote, that means somebody has a differing opinion. Leaving it at a downvote only lets us know somebody disagrees and no new dialog can be had about what other ways something could be viewed.
That being said I think we mostly use the upvote and downvote feature on HN wrong but I could be wrong because I never really looked it up.
I think the intent is a upvote and downvote marks relevance, not agreement, but we often use it for agreement when upvoting. And downvotes seem to happen for both relevance and disagreements.
For example, replying to a post about what hosting provider is best with "I like chocolate ice cream", and "Rackspace is a good option" could both be downvoted for very difference reasons. One for being off topic, OR not liking chocolate ice cream" and the other for simply hating Rack Space.
So if you find you are downvoting something that has no comments that cover your settlement and the post is on topic then it would be helpful for many who may not share your sentiment if you explain why. I don't think that is too much to ask for.
If you upvote, and had to reply saying the same thing because you agree no new information is presented. Thus simply upvoting is needed.
But if you downvote, that means somebody has a differing opinion. Leaving it at a downvote only lets us know somebody disagrees and no new dialog can be had about what other ways something could be viewed.
That being said I think we mostly use the upvote and downvote feature on HN wrong but I could be wrong because I never really looked it up.
I think the intent is a upvote and downvote marks relevance, not agreement, but we often use it for agreement when upvoting. And downvotes seem to happen for both relevance and disagreements.
For example, replying to a post about what hosting provider is best with "I like chocolate ice cream", and "Rackspace is a good option" could both be downvoted for very difference reasons. One for being off topic, OR not liking chocolate ice cream" and the other for simply hating Rack Space.
So if you find you are downvoting something that has no comments that cover your settlement and the post is on topic then it would be helpful for many who may not share your sentiment if you explain why. I don't think that is too much to ask for.