>Furthermore, I would argue that self-reflection about why people might disagree with your viewpoints is a valuable experience in that it provides an opportunity to practice empathy and awareness in how your words are perceived by others.

It's easier to practice empathy when you're not blindly guessing at what bothered the downvoter.

Except, not? Empathy as a practice is the process of thinking about and correctly guessing the feelings or thoughts of another. If you are given the 'answer' then it does not require any further though. It is trying to cross that gap, 'why did no one like what I said', that I think you find empathy in.

I'm almost just on HN so I can't talk about other places. But the few times I get downvotes I would like to know why somebody voted me down.

It's not owed to you, but it is still best practice to do so.

In many communities (HN, Reddit, etc.) downvotes are ostensibly not to be used for disagreement. Forcing users to supply a reason could introduce enough friction to encourage more thoughtful usage of the downvote.

HN is not such a forum, downvotes to disagree are perfectly fine here.

Please kindly enter a constructive reason for your downvote:

"ur dumb and wrong .stay mad!"

"ostensibly" is an important qualifier.

What makes you think no one owes you an explanation? If they're downvoting you and influencing how visible your comment(s) are I'd argue they do need to explain.

Likewise you seem to need to take your own advice to brainstorm to understand why it is likely to add value to someone else leaving a comment and not simply requiring you to brainstorm and make guesses, e.g. bias and blind spots a person may have; what other possibilities are there?

Edit to add: 2 upvotes then down to -1; it's hilarious how bad and poorly used downvotes are.

> What makes you think no one owes you an explanation?

What makes you think they do? You think you could use something, that doesn't mean a stranger owes it to you.

If you change seats to get away from someone on a bus, do you tell them why? If not, how would you feel if they followed you and said you embarassed them and you owe them an explanation?

This is a perfect example of the point. I hold your view too, but your comment is being downvoted and I have no idea what the counterarguments are. It would be enlightening to know.