The worst part is downvoting someone without expressing why you did it. For example :
This is spam. Downvoted.
Most of the time people seem to just don't care about how someone else feels when gets downvoted. In the case of an article this gets more frustrating because there was effort to do it, document it and other things too. Even if the article is not what you think of "cool" it doesn't mean that it doesn't deserve an explanation on why it was downvoted.
Some might say: This is the internet, democracy etc... Democracy is also getting annoyed when someone thinks of you like a "nothing".
Other times, someone might post something that he doesn't like, only to see if others feel the same too.
I've had comments and submissions of mine downvoted before, and I didn't take offense. The article or my comment was simply "unliked" rather than enjoyed (upvoted) or met with indifference (left alone). Reading anything more into it is kind of silly.
I think it's actually natural for people to feel offended, because down voting is an active engagement.
There are actually 3 choices. Ignore, up vote, and down vote. Down vote is taking the time and effort to click and purposely bury something. If it was unliked it would have probably simply been ignored. I seriously doubt most people read through each title and only either down vote or up vote. Most would probably be ignored, with the particularly hated ones being more likely down voted.
Mistakes are human's little addition to the galaxy. Kanamit turns out to be a joke. Nitrogen will be added today as well as some others pointed out by our users.
Went Gone Don't Go Goo Get there
:P