So assume it's that your comment fell into the "noise" category and work harder on producing "signal" next time. We don't need to have a discussion every time someone felt that some post did not contribute sufficiently to the discussion.

The noise category assumption is a fair one. "Work harder" is a vague recommendation. Are there more specific recommendations you could make?

No, a discussion would create noise, which would not be valuable for the HN community. A voluntary, anonymous, tip about what made the downvoted comment noise would be more than sufficient. To avoid it becoming a discussion, no reply would be allowed. (Just to throw a half-baked idea out.)

Downvotes could easily become learning exercises that boost the comment quality over time.

    The noise category assumption is a fair one. "Work harder" is a vague recommendation. Are there more specific recommendations you could make?

Don't post just because you can. Don't echo comments others have made. Don't post "obligatory" comments or content-free Reddit memes. Say something meaningful that is not immediately obvious.

Don't treat post writing as an exercise in upvotability optimization.

How about this for a HN feature.

If your post is < 1, add a link to a page about downvoted comments.

That way, the person who was downvoted has an opportunity to read about some common reasons why a post was downvoted, read tips on making better comments, and has more time to emotionally process being downvoted.

Ironically, the comment above is an accidental implementation of this feature. It is currently at 0 points, and has a link to the HN policy as a link.

I think if a post goes -1, anyone else downmodding should have to reply to be allowed to downmod them again. I am all for the karma system, but I have had situations where people misinterpret what I am saying and after requesting a "why," I find out changing one word makes people understand to the point of me not being negative. (And burying a dissenting opinion for no reason should need a defense.)

A tag feedback is more gratifying to the person getting downvoted. That person is less likely to be upset and produce a "boring discussion".