Just as there are good and bad answers (and thus, voting up and down is allowed), is there a good reason why comment (not answer) downvote is not allowed?
Sometimes the comments are very much out there, so perhaps downvoting them should be allowed?
Just as there are good and bad answers (and thus, voting up and down is allowed), is there a good reason why comment (not answer) downvote is not allowed?
Sometimes the comments are very much out there, so perhaps downvoting them should be allowed?
I believe downvoting comments would mislead users from its original purpose:
They are helpful in positively keeping the workflow toward good Questions and Answers, which is the SE main objective.
Whatever reason a comment is posted (asking for clarification, suggesting an improvement, stating a critic or complement),
upvotes already play the role to differentiate which comments community thinks are the most relevant. The asker/answerer can concentrate on these ones to prioritize actions on the thread or providing an explanation reply.
On the other hand a comment which is not upvoted already tends to be irrelevant.
In case a person does not agree with a comment, he/she can post another comment stating the reason of the disagreement. If the reason is a good one, the comment will be upvoted too.
Moreover, downvoting a comment could begin a discussion about a specific comment (which is not desired because takes the attention away from questions or answers).
This line of reasoning also applies to Q&A style (e.g. an answer with zero vote is probably not a good one), but in this case a negative score alerts the reader: do not follow this information to solve your problem, because it is wrong or is ineffective even if another solution/approach was not provided.
Lastly, there are exceptions like an highly upvoted funny and irrelevant comment or a zero score good answer, but they are a minor portion of total.
Other exceptions I can think of are answers embedded in comments. For this ones I share the opinion users should encourage each other to post: answers as answers and questions as questions.
Up votes on Comments do not appear to increase a user's reputation. So voting down on a comment wouldn't have much of an effect.