[mclifton]

Prior to reading these arguments I would have agreed. But I suppose I have to admit that I would prefer that someone said "This feature isn't necessary - feature Y is a perfectly good substitute" or even "this feature is inappropriate according to the goals of this project" and upvote those comments, rather than downvoting the original feature/pull request without giving a reason.

I'm not nearly as adamantly opposed to a downvote button, but I can understand the argument.

[alphapapa]

The problem here is the presupposition that a positive argument has been made. People often make claims without any supporting argument. If only counterclaims were required to have supporting argument, it would be unbalanced in favor of bald assertions.

Sometimes people make silly claims or requests or demands. In such cases, one shouldn't be required to write a reasoned counterargument. A simple "nope" should suffice.

"This is why we can't have nice things." People assume the status quo is bad or wrong and that change is necessarily progress. It begins to take more effort to keep the good things that have been achieved than it does to break them and replace them with regressions. It requires more time and effort to defend them against the onslaught of unreasoned demands because of irrational bias against the status quo.

This is true not only in software but in politics and society. But for a simple example in the software world, just look at the Metro UI: it's awful for a million reasons, a regression even from Windows 95's UI--but to some people, it's change, therefore it must be progress, therefore it must be done.