It's curious. Since my first few abortive attempts at writeups, and subsequent nukings, I really thought that I'd become more resilient to downvoting. I know that it's a simple binary method of expressing opinion.
However, sometimes, it's really difficult to understand why a writeup has received a negative reputation. I can sit and read all of my submissions that hover around about the 0 mark, and wonder, "Why have people disliked this?"
Perhaps some people just choose to downvote my writing.
I can understand that. There have been a few moments (at least!) of my time as a user of e2 when I have considered serially downvoting someone's work, purely because of a misplaced or misunderstood comment in the catbox. I can't claim to never have voted from that perspective. Sometimes I do struggle to understand what's wrong. A tiny part of me wishes that with the downvote button there was a box that said "If no, why?", just to give the author some feedback.
I tend to view each downvote as a "NO!" from the voter. I confess, perhaps it's a softness to me, if I happen across a w/u that I don't like or don't agree with, or don't understand, I would try to take the time to message the author to suggest or query. If I don't take the time to do that, then I avoid downvoting. A "Welcome to e2" message to a new user trying to get to grips doesn't tend to go amiss either. Feedback is a good thing.
This place needs more actual feedback. Let's begin.