&gt; Or because I&#x27;m right but present an unpopular opinion?<p>Some opinions are neither right nor wrong, they are just point of views, and the unpopular ones tend to get downvoted--admittedly, to a lesser extent on HN than other communities, but still happens. This has the unfortunate effect that, as you point out, the downvoted author doesn&#x27;t know if there was something wrong with the tone or content, or if it just happened that his&#x2F;her views are unpopular.<p>Maybe asking for a few words (presumably in a small, unintrusive ajax form, and not visible in the main thread) as reason for downvoting could be useful, and somewhat deter &quot;not-my-opinion-at-all&quot; downvotes.