[mikestew]

...that's surely exactly the intention of the downvote option.

Someone will be along shortly with link to Paul Graham writing that a downvote button can be used for disagreement. I disagree, so I don't have that one in my bookmarks, sorry.

[tptacek]

It's not just Graham; it's current site moderation policy, and the rationale has been explained repeatedly (to wit: we don't want meta-discussions about the validity of votes, which are boring and outcompete substantive conversations, since everyone can come up with an opinion about a vote on the fly).

[pfarrell]

I knew the policy about meta discussion, but on a thread that itself was meta, talking about the thing using the thing, I figured I'd lay out one comment about commenting. I discovered, on closer inspection, that the guidelines also ask one not leave comments about the why of flagging a story. I rarely flag stories and have been guilty once of doing just that.