Downvote Clarification

I have been reading Hacker News for some years now. More recently I joined and have been attempting to respond to posts with accurate information. If people object to what I have to say I clarify and also go back and edit my posts to remove things if people seem to be particularly offended or annoyed by what I have to say.<p>A recent trend that has occurred is that my posts are downvoted if they criticize what other people have to say, regardless of whether or not my statements are accurate or not.<p>Could the community please clarify to me exactly what votes in the system are supposed to mean? That is, is it a personal opinion of whether you like someones post or not, or should it be more professional? I personally believe that it should be a professional analysis of the post content combined with a small amount of downvotes to try to steer angry individuals into being more cooperative.<p>If it is just a personal opinion, please say exactly this so I can know to become a sheep to save my rating.