Of 14 people who have down-voted this, seemingly not one has the ability to verbally state what their objections are. Is that not toxicity?

It's not that we don't have the ability, it is that we don't think that the post could be improved to fix the issues we see. In that case, downvoting without comment is the appropriate response as opposed to arguing in the comments, for example.

I will also add that this is the second time on this post that I've seen you be aggressive/rude to downvoters who haven't commented which makes me even less likely to comment. If you want feedback, ask nicely.

@Rubiksmoose : But are you not able to explain what those issues are? I am a highly experienced user, and I don't know what they are. Moreover, I disagree that downvoting without comment is appropriate.

@Rubiksmoose : Rude? Maybe I complained that their behavior is rude or otherwise wrong.

@Rubiksmoose : I don't think someone who condones this practice, which I know is conventional the meta pages like this one, should complain of rudeness when the perceived rudeness is that someone says that their behavior is rude.

@MichaelHardy: First time you called it "cowardly" (and by extension the people who downvoted, cowards) and this time implying that nobody has the ability to explain why they disagree, ignoring the fact that this is the correct thing to do on SE sites in this case. Not once have you asked and not demanded feedback.

See this post for a thorough explanation for why comments on downvoting is not required and is, in fact, the correct action in many cases. You can, of course, disagree but it is a fundamental idea that SE is built on and will continue to work that way regardless of whether you agree or not.

@Rubiksmoose : Calling it cowardly is an accusation, not an insult. I do consider it cowardly. I do not ignore the "fact" that it is a correct thing to do; rather I disagree with that proposition and I say so.

@Rubiksmoose : The page to which you link is titled "Why isn't providing feedback mandatory on downvotes[...]". You see that in this my posted answer, I proposed that voting on postings on "meta" should be abolished. If that were done, there would be no need to provide feedback on downvotes. The existence of voting on pages where opinions are to be expressed and discussed is one of the major causes of toxicity.

@MichaelHardy Yup and I disagree with pretty much all of that. Hence one reason for my downvote.

There are many flaws to the Meta system, but abolishing voting wholesale would not fix any of them.

You referred to "the issues we see". The seeming assertion of a right to say "we" rather than "I" is questionable. Can you say what those issues are?

"Not once have you asked and not demanded feedback." But my comments came after rudeness from others and was clearly addressed only to those people.

. . . and furthermore I have often asked for feedback, on hundreds of occasions.

@MichaelHardy 1) you called out a specific user which is not allowed here (since fixed) 2) I don't see your example of the close queue as an example of toxicity (or honestly as a flaw, at most an inconvenience) 3) I disagree that voting on Meta is an issue (as a mod I rely a whole lot on voting on Meta, for one thing) or at least in the absence of a better proposal.

@MichaelHardy I'm talking about this post. I don't recall having interacted with you before so I have no idea what your history is.

I intuited that these things were not things that you were going to change your mind about, so I downvoted and moved on as is the accepted best practice.

I cannot rule out the possibility of changing my mind if there were reasons to do so, but you and other downvoters to this posting have never said there are any, let alone what they are. And the fact is, I don't know.

Well it has never been my intent to try to change your mind. I fully understand you being frustrated with downvotes without explanation; I do. I've found that if you ask nicely though you very often get good feedback.

(On Meta.SE)

And I've found that if you ask nicely on the "meta" pages, you often get incomprehensible hostility.

And what does asking not nicely get you?

There are many cases where I expected collegiality and was baffled when people responded with hostility.

Have you ever walked up to a stranger and slapped their face and then wondered why they addressed you in a way that is not polite?

Sure, there have been many times on here I've met people that respond way too hostilely to me or someone else, but that's when I use my flags.

What does "sure" mean here? You're not answering what I asked. It wasn't whether you've seen someone being rude, but whether you've wondered why they were rude after you introduced yourself by slapping their face.

Presumably that analogy does not hold true here since you are not asking the people who slapped you for feedback. (unless downvoting is the slapping here)

You don't want rude people to give you feedback, you want polite people. And the way to encourage that is to ask nicely.

and rude responses should get handled by a mod.

What I am comparing to slapping is a many-years-long history. I post a question that's ONLY a question, about how people think things ought to work on stackexchange, I people respond with hostility and tell me my posting is evil.

"And the way to encourage that is to ask nicely." That seems to be the very thing you don't understand. You wonder why I seem less than polite. Maybe you could have been polite initially.

People have been hostile to you in the past, and that's unfortunate, but that has nothing to do with how you should act right now if you want to receive good, polite feedback.

I certainly understand why you acted the way you did, but understanding does not mean that it is acceptable.

ok, The example most prominent in my memory is this. On meta.math.stackexchange.com I have on some occasions asked people if they could clarify what constitutes "lack of context" justifying closing a posting on "main". I posted a particular question, copied from a book (without identifying it as such), and asked whether, if it appeared on the main site as a question, it should be closed for lack of context. Several people responded by telling me how evil I must be to ask about that.

...and I don't know why they did that.

"Meta" sites should welcome expression and discussion of opinions, unlike other places where "opinion-based" is grounds for closing.

But the existence of voting chills expression of opinions other than "Let's keep everything the way it is now and has always been. Let's not think about whether there's room for improvement."

@MichaelHardy I don't think I agree with that. It's just as easy to upvote as to downvote and votes can be used for change. I don't see voting as favoring the status quo moreso than the natural inertia people have to change that would be expressed in any form.

Opinions even slightly out of the mainstream are not just unwelcome on meta.math.stackexchange.com; they are regarded as criminal offenses.

Well, assuming that is true, then that's certainly not a good look for the community as a whole. But I don't think removing voting is the answer there.

"A very long piece of string is dropped very unskillfully onto the floor. What is the probability distribution of the distance between its two ends?" That is almost-but-not-quite verbatim the way that question was written by a physicist. It lacks the precision that is in some contexts (especially in textbooks) considered proper in a question on mathematics, and in some contexts is not essential.

I asked whether that should be closed for "lack of context" if posted as a question on the main site. Some activities aroused that suspicion in my mind.

I get several people responding with hostility and I've never had the slightest idea why.

By the way, maybe those who condemn the killing of George Floyd should not be so angry but should ask nicely. Right?

@MichaelHardy Not at all applicable here and highly inappropriate as an analogy to a stupid Q&A website where people are being rude to you.

How is it not applicable? It's right at the heart of what we're talking about,

It is not. You are not dead, you are not protesting, you are not talking about real life, you are not being life-threatened. We are talking about being polite on a website to get polite responses back.

You were rude, got no reply. Complained about getting no reply (rather rudely again IMO) and still only got a reply because some silly moose got tricked into thinking you actually wanted to hear said feedback.

You will have noticed that I reported in this posting the following facts: On dozens of occasions over several years, up to about 2015 or 2016, I reported to the moderators a certain of behavior that I found objectionable (described in my posting; you can see it) without ever once getting any reply or acknowledgement that I had ever once contacted them about it.

ok, So you're saying that what I said about George Floyd is not applicable. I thought you meant what I said about what the physicist wrote.

@MichaelHardy oh no my apologies. The Floyd analogy is what I was referring to.

You misunderstand what I said about George Floyd. I was saying that persistent abusive behavior that lasts several years might explain why someone is angry.

@MichaelHardy I understand that, but in the case you want other people to behave a certain way towards you. You want them to give you polite feedback. Being polite is the way to do that. Being angry gets you nothing at best, and rudeness at worst on this site.

Should a high-reputation user who contacts moderators dozens of times over several years about a particular hear something from them about whether they do or do not think the reports have some merit, or otherwise something on the subject of their reports. At least admitting that those reports exist?

Note that my posting that got those 14 down-votes is factual and is respectful to its readers.

@MichaelHardy Downvotes represent disagreement. I explained about why I disagreed. Other people likely have other or similar reasons. You wanted explanation for the downvotes, I explained how you could increase your chance of getting them. I'm not sure what else you want.

@MichaelHardy It has a lot to do with context. Not having any context from a moderator's side I couldn't possibly make a judgement on that.

Anyways, I do have to go now. I hope I have at least helped a bit.

See ya around.

They were complaints of a clique of users on meta closing on bogus pretext all postings on how the close-queues should be run and behaving in a hostile way to anyone who mentions that subject.

"I explained about why I disagreed." Where is that?

So a clique declares a subject forbidden on meta and enforces that, but never admits that that's what they're doing, and you don't see that as toxicity?

You "rely on" voting on meta? What does that mean?

BTW, If you meet a person who changes his mind without a lengthy discussion, about an issue he has grappled with for several years, then you will have met a bad person, with whom it is not worthwhile to discuss or argue about anything.