As for your other text topic. I can see why people choose to downvote it. It just comes across as whining over nothing.
This is your opinion, which I respect, and yet I upvote you even though it's disagreeing with my thoughts on why I posted that which I won't get into here. They're valid feelings submitted by a real person. It's not that hard to come to that conclusion, and I feel like we are making too many excuses for new users.
As for your last paragraph while I do think that would be a positive step forward, users will not learn if they aren't told they are doing something wrong at the time they're doing it. Sending a link to an FAQ or Rule List will never be taken seriously if there aren't repercussions for seeing a snap, downvoting it because you don't like it, and going on with your day. If you're going to damage the reputation of another user because you don't like their content they deserve to seek you out and ask you face to face why you did it, maybe you have a valid opinion, maybe you don't.
This system of 'downvotes with no names or faces' is highly conducive to the hive minding that make other places terrible to participate in. In those senarios you're just being down voted by the "system" or the "group" or the "members at hand" and not downvoted by user X for reason Y. I don't think that cuts it for a lot of people. We need some accountability.
As per your example:
This is your opinion, which I respect, and yet I upvote you even though it's disagreeing with my thoughts on why I posted that which I won't get into here. They're valid feelings submitted by a real person. It's not that hard to come to that conclusion, and I feel like we are making too many excuses for new users.
As for your last paragraph while I do think that would be a positive step forward, users will not learn if they aren't told they are doing something wrong at the time they're doing it. Sending a link to an FAQ or Rule List will never be taken seriously if there aren't repercussions for seeing a snap, downvoting it because you don't like it, and going on with your day. If you're going to damage the reputation of another user because you don't like their content they deserve to seek you out and ask you face to face why you did it, maybe you have a valid opinion, maybe you don't.
This system of 'downvotes with no names or faces' is highly conducive to the hive minding that make other places terrible to participate in. In those senarios you're just being down voted by the "system" or the "group" or the "members at hand" and not downvoted by user X for reason Y. I don't think that cuts it for a lot of people. We need some accountability.