Why the downvote mechanism for comments, anyways?

Question

As a frequently downvoted commenter on HN, I've done a lot of thinking about this mechanism, and I would like to propose a change to it.Since the goal of HN is to encourage discussion and debate, why not require a reply to a comment before you can downvote it?This would change the negative, conversation stifling enablement into one that requires a person to contribute to the discourse before voting their disapproval. It would help to distinguish HN from other driveby, populist moderated forums.

mtmail · Accepted Answer

Some comments are so stupid and off-topic, example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22766042, a simple downvote is enough. Engaging in a reply is IMHO just feeding trolls who are trying to be edgy/funny and not add value to the discussion. "He's the one" (in the example), the reply to the "He's the one", the reply to that reply for example. Same for "+1", "LOL" and other one word exclamation comments. Looking at your comments, like "That will touch off the hoarding of kitty litter!", the downvotes are IMHO justified and I'd like to see less of those. I'm kind of saying they're a hint on the quality of said comment.