Earlier quoted context omitted.
And that is explicitly what the guidelines are against. If you'd prefer an admonishment which specifically points to that, try: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13213514 > or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14435528 >. You can search/review others yourself with: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... > (dang) or https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... > (sctb)…
i disagree. i mean, sure, they could have said "i expect everyone will disagree with me" instead of "I'm fully prepared to be downvoted into oblivion", and it would have meant the same thing. but neither is complaining about downvotes like the messages you link to. and quite frankly i disagree that asking for explanations when you downvote is the same as complaining about downvotes because that again could have been…
Asking for reasons for disagreement (not downvotes) is legitimate, and I challenge you to find any instances in which mods admonish this practice.
Again, the mods' comments form a large body of informal guidance on HN practices. Those practices are explicitly NOT written precisely or in detail for both brevity and flexibility.
See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22267961>, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7798120>, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7617961>, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7606756>.
HN's guiding principle is "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>, 1st 'graph). This means fighting against any behaviours which will cause the site to lose its mind, a constant battle of the mods. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17689715>. The balance is delicate.
The root comment in this thread would have been more effective without the downvote-grousing throat clearing: "in the USA we have non-profit organizations. You might have heard of things like the YMCA, BGCA, etc." Even that 2nd sentence is probably needlessly provocative, and could be rewritten as "Such as the YMCA...".
Spending time with HN may be useful in refining rhetorical technique in such ways.
Oh, and for the record, by no means do I agree with mods in all cases (and I'm absolutely not one myself). I'll occasionally downvote, or flag, admonishments if I find them entirely off-base or tone-deaf. But for the most part I understand why the guidelines and actions exist. Where I disagree, it's generally because the guidelines themselves impose an inequality-amplifying bias to the site.