@onealfa, these are great points made to explain the need/use for downvotes, but the fact still remains that even with all the good intentions one might have for downvoting, nothing beats having actual Community rules to guide our downvoting.
The reason why nothing beats it is that apart from plagiarism and what the Community has agreed to call bad behavior all other reasons for downvotes are very subjective, being subjective means it can lead to a lot of disagreement and these disagreements are harmful to the community at large.
So as good as the intentions to downvote can be it is safest to have guidelines to guide it in order to avoid all the quarrels that comes from the subjective nature of other reasons to downvote.
Would you now agree that this is a safer means more protective of the community to go about this?