Canned reasons for upvote and downvote (with an example of how it would work)

Question

I'm annoyed by downvoters that don't explain why they downvoted a question or an answer. Although, at the same time, I understand that they want to remain anonymous. I think there is a middle ground, though, where the voter can remain anonymous, while the poster can get aggregated feedback on ways to improve the post.

Rather than having to imagine what it might be like, the current Stack Overflow engine can emulate this rather effectively with the use of comments and the upvoting of those comments (essentially saying "I agree"). So I thought I would give it a try.

The only difference is that in this testing post, you will always see the list of "canned responses" whereas in the complete version, it will most likely be hidden in a popup (e.g., when you hover over the score of an answer/question).

To try it out, simply upvote or downvote this question (or one of its answers), and press the up arrow next to the comment which best describes why are voting that way. For example, if you hate this idea, give this a downvote, and then press the up arrow near -1: I don't like this idea.

In addition to retaining anonymity, this will also save time for the voter so that they don't need to write out the comment. This wouldn't be required, obviously, and there could be a default option selected don't leave a reason. In addition, there could be a custom option which allows you type exactly why you are downvoting this way.

Depending on the final implementation, this could either simply be converted to a comment automatically prefixed with -1: or +1:; or, to retain anonymity, it would be added to this same list that shows the canned responses and how many users have voted that way.

Here are some ideas for the canned responses:

Question:

• +1: Well formatted and thought out question.
• -1: It doesn't seem like enough time was spent trying to solve this issue on your own.
• -1: I don't like this idea. (Could be especially useful on meta.stackoverflow.com feature-request.)
• -1: No prior research/work. (Idea from here.)
• -1: Poor question. Please see How to ask questions the smart way.
• -1: Doesn't contain code. (This would be useful on stackoverflow.com. Idea from this post)

Answer:

• +1: Concise.
• +1: Insightful.
• +1: Worked for me.
• -1: It's wrong.
• -1: Confusing.
• -1: Encouraging bad behavior (e.g., answering a question that shouldn't have been asked; see this post for more information).

I made this a community-wiki since there will probably be testing of upvotes and downvotes. Several of these canned responses have been taken from this answer. This same idea was also suggested here.

Answer 1

I like the idea, personally, although the "test version" is way too awkward to really be useful. Let's just propose the feature, and have these reasons replace the current "please leave a reason" popup for low-to-moderate rep users issuing downvotes, along with a "decline" option (they don't have to leave a comment). I'm not sure how it would work for upvotes though, we definitely don't want to annoy upvoters with popup dialogs.

What would be really great is if these reasons could be displayed to the poster, but optionally remain anonymous in terms of the voter. Sort of like how when I click the close link, I can see why other people have voted to close, this would allow the OP to see why people upvoted/downvoted.

I'd also prefer reasons that are a little more informative than the ones in the OP. I can't speak to SF or SU, but on SO and Meta I can think of some very common reasons for upvotes/downvotes (many of these probably apply to SO/SU as well):

Stack Overflow:

Questions:

• +1: Addresses an interesting or common problem.
• +1: Explains the problem or requirement clearly.
• +1: Well-written and engaging.
• -1: Sloppy writing, difficult to read (consider editing to improve).
• -1: Rude/abrasive language.
• -1: Leaves out critical details (consider commenting first).
• -1: Scope is unreasonably large.

Answers:

• +1: Provides correct information / working code.
• +1: I learned something new from this.
• +1: Objective, unbiased, and/or well-researched.
• +1: Offers potentially helpful advice or background.
• -1: Does not compile.
• -1: Will not produce the expected result.
• -1: Likely to fail or cause negative side-effects.
• -1: Irrelevant or off-topic.
• -1: Not specific enough to be useful.
• -1: Makes unfounded subjective claims.
• -1: Sloppy writing, difficult to read.

Meta:

Questions:

• +1: I can reproduce this (bugs).
• +1: This feature would be useful.
• +1: This is an interesting topic.
• -1: Not reproducible / not enough information.
• -1: No freehand circles.
• -1: This feature would be actively harmful.
• -1: Purpose of discussion is unclear / not focused.

Answers:

• +1: Answers the question with an existing link/feature.
• +1: Proposes a good solution/workaround.
• +1: Persuasive / makes valid points.
• -1: Unclear or unhelpful.
• -1: Overuses tired memes.
• -1: Body Odor is also status-bydesign but we still wear deodorant.
• -1: For being/agreeing with Evan Carroll.
• -1: Because I can.

Some people will probably point out that some of these overlap with close reasons. Yes, they do, but close votes are irrevocable and not everybody has sufficient rep. I also think there's sufficient gray area between, for example, rude vs. offensive, to make it a valid downvote reason. "Scope is unreasonably large" may be similar to "not a real question" but it's not quite the same. The question may be very specific in terms of the author's requirements but simply be asking for an absurd amount of work (for example somebody posting their full homework assignment).

Anyway, that's was just a quick brainstorm. Feel free to use or ignore the reasons. Personally, I think these account for 95% of my votes, and if I could click one or two buttons to add them then I would probably end up leaving more comments (especially if they were anonymous, but that's not a requirement).

Answer 2

I currently rarely participate in the down vote process. For me, the reason is simply the golden rule: I don't like receiving down votes, so I won't dish them out. I will, however, leave comments as to how a post could be improved when I think it is warranted.

I like the proposed approach to down voting, but I am not sure it would be enough to get me to participate in using it. There are at least a couple of suggestions I would offer that would probably convert me into a down voter:

• Down votes should primarily be a reflection of the quality of the question or the answer, and not a reflection of the quality of the person asking or answering.
  This means that the down votes should mostly be about whether or not the question or answer itself is good or bad. It should effect reputation, but not on a purely linear scale (I have ideas on how to apply the reputation hit, but it would take too long to explain here). The sum total of down votes are still weighed against the score of the question or answer.

• Down votes should be aged out if the specific issues being down voted on were addressed.
  There is currently no process to compel down voters to revisit questions and answers to re-evaluate their down votes. As such, leaving the down votes on the question or answer may not truly reflect the quality the post, which is a form of misinformation. It is difficult to say when to judge that an issue has been addressed, but perhaps some kind of review task could be created when the number of up votes exceeds the down votes on a particular reason. If enough reviewers deem the down vote reason is addressed, the down votes are aged out. (Along with my first point, aging out down votes would not cause a spike in reputation.)

Answer 3

This is a sample answer.

Answer 4

A couple problems here:

1. Violation of "don't make me think". Now instead of clicking a single button to express any of the myriad reasons I might want to downvote something, I have to parse more UI and think about which reason maps most closely.

2. If people want to leave a reason, they will. That's what comments are for. If they don't, they won't.

3. You're putting the burden on the reader when the burden should be on the writer. If people are downvoting your stuff, MAKE IT BETTER. It's your responsibility to figure out why those downvotes exist. In other words, the needs of the many (readers) outweigh the needs of the few (writer). Pushing this responsibility on ALL your readers/voters is just plain lazy.

Answer 5

The thing I like most about the canned reason is these reasons encourage improving the post instead of engaging in chat about the reason for the vote that happens when comments are left. Comments seem to be often taken as a personal attack instead of as constructive criticism. I would add a prefer not to say option.

Answer 6

I also support that a downvote needs a reason, but they can remain anonymous.

There is no reason to vote upvote. Because as long as you think this question helped you or gained something, you can upvote for it.

Here's why a downvote needs a reason:

1. A downvote without reason is an invalid feedback that does nothing for the OP to improve the problem. We need more positive feedback.
2. Adding a cost to downvoting, which makes you comment more carefully, is perfectly justified in my opinion.
3. People are usually stingy with compliments and like to criticize, and allowing people to criticize anonymously encourages more behavior (I'm not trying to remove anonymity; it may create more conflicts).
4. I don't think 'don't make me think' is applicable in this case. It applies to the situation of human–computer interaction, and the current situation should be human-to-human communication. If you don't need to think, how can you ask questions and how can you answer them?

It's your responsibility to figure out why those downvotes exist. I think you're making an impossible claim, It's like asking you to develop a program that will never have bugs.You can't hold the OP accountable for something he doesn't know about.

Those who want to give feedback, will. Those who don't, cannot be forced to. I agree that they cannot be forced to leave a comment, but correspondingly they should not be given the power to down vote.

I can give more practical examples:

1. You might be an experienced programmer who sees that the OP asked a very low-level question, so you downvote it, and don't want to waste your time by leaving a comment.
2. You downvoted for some reason, but you don't think that reason is strong, so you didn't leave a comment.
3. You don't think that's a good reason, so you didn't leave a comment. But whatever, you do it when you want to.

P.S. I'd like to tell the OP, who was downvoted without a comment and downvoted without reason, I don't think it's a valid feedback. You shouldn't bother with it, just think you're right.

The links mentioned in this answer are useful.

Answer 7

I am opposed, since someone's bumped this.

I have a semi-serious counter-suggestion.

The first time someone gets a downvote, show them some version of the following:

Congratulations! You just got your first downvote. We know, you feel like someone kicked a puppy, and the puppy was you. However, you'll get over it very soon. This downvote only cost you two units of reputation. Now, maybe you think that you didn't deserve it. If so, chances are that someone is about to wander along and give you an upvote, and you'll be ahead. If your post did deserve it, all you have to do is try a bit harder the next time to give a meaningful question or a useful answer, and the upvotes will roll in and soothe the sting.

Answer 8

EDIT

From the comments provided by @fbueckert, a more recent post that does a good job of addressing this issue and explaining the reasoning behind the existing implementation: "Why isn't providing feedback mandatory on downvotes, and why are ideas suggesting such shot down?"

I still may not completely agree with the conclusions and explanations given, but it's extremely useful in providing some much-needed clarity on the topic.

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Bring out your dead and call in the Necromancer

Yes, I know this request is more than 9 years old. I realize that, at this time, it's in a status-declined status. I understand that the number of upvotes would seem to indicate that it's not a very popular suggestion. I seriously debated whether to post the following tirade as an answer here or as a new question entirely. In the end, I decided a new question would probably be considered a duplicate, so here we go...

TL;DR - Personally, I like the idea tremendously, but with some (albeit, significant to the OP's suggestion) alteration:

I don't think this should be a part of the up-vote process. Up-voting should be a completely painless process. Firstly, the up-vote is usually enough for most users as an indication that they've posted something worthwhile. Additionally, there's rarely a reason to explain someone's reasoning behind up-voting. They think the question or answer is well thought out, well constructed, etc. and, unless the up-voter feels the need to provide some additional encouragement, adding complexity to up-voting just means that fewer people will do it. Explaining your up-vote doesn't actually provide the poster with anything truly "helpful" because they don't need to do anything to improve what they posted. They got the "warm-fuzzy" feeling, and they're going to move on.

Down-votes, on the other hand, should implement this feature as something which is absolutely mandatory. Down-voting shouldn't be as easy and painless as up-voting. It should require some additional thought and effort. If you're going to criticize someone's question/answer - more importantly, if you want someone to improve the way they ask or answer questions on Stack Exchange - it's important to offer some form of explanation or reasoning why you believe the post doesn't meet the standards.

One of my biggest frustrations - my "Stack Peeves", if you will - with regards to the voting process on Stack Exchange is down-voting. I rarely avail myself of my down-vote privilege unless the question or answer is exceedingly bad - uncited/unfounded opinion/speculation (except in those rare cases where it's somehow appropriate), zero research/effort, etc. I agree that down-voting is a very useful mechanic and helps others to gauge the quality of any given question/answer, but it's current implementation really only serves as a discouragement - especially to new users - unless the individual down-voter is kind enough to take the time to leave a comment.

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Arguments Against

Unfortunately, most of the time down-votes are cast in a "drive-by" fashion and leave the poster wondering, "what did I do wrong?". Let me see if I can answer some of the more common (that I've seen) arguments against this feature:

"If it's a bad post, the poster should go look at the multitude of resources that are already available to figure out how to write a better question/answer"

I'm certainly not saying that's wrong but, as I'm sure many here know, it's often difficult to see the errors/problems in your own writing (or programming code) until someone else (a person, or a debugger) shows them to you. Once it's been pointed out, it's usually glaringly obvious and you frequently know exactly how to correct the issue. But, until then, you're just left frustrated as to why it's "broken".

"But, the onus should be on the poster to figure out why it's a bad post"
_{(Jeff Atwood's point #3)}

I don't know about you, but that rarely works for me IRL. If I come home and see my wife is visibly upset, I begin going through a litany of reasons why in my head: maybe it has something to do with the kids, maybe it's money, maybe - and probably more likely - I did something stupid. I ask her what's wrong, and she says, "nothing". Now, in this situation, I have access to some additional cues based on her body language and tone: If she says it in a "frosty" tone, I can assume that it's most likely because of something I did. If she seems exasperated, it very well could be that the kids are working her last nerve.

We don't have any such cues here in this text-based communication medium. They don't see the burning glare in your eye as you click that down-vote button. They don't hear the frustration in your voice as you grumble something like, "another stupid noob that just wants us to hand them the answer without doing any research themselves".

Your down-vote could have been cast for any of a multitude of reasons, but without some sort of context, the poster can't automatically make any assumptions and doesn't have any good point of reference for starting their own investigation into what it is that they need to fix.

"But, I shouldn't have to waste my time with extra clicks"

Well, my only response to that is that you "wasted your time" reading the post, you considered it worth "wasting your time" to down-vote so, really, what's one or two extra clicks? If you really feel passionate about it, there can be an "Other" option for you to provide a specific and detailed explanation of your issues with the post. Otherwise, you can simply choose one of the canned options and move on with your day.

"But, I don't necessarily want my username shown as a down-voter"

Well, while I personally feel it would be best to have the down-vote explicitly and expressly associated with the user that cast it, this implementation can certainly accommodate anonymity. There isn't necessarily anything that inherently "ties" a user to their down-vote in this proposal, although it would be possible to either include or exclude that information based on the desired implementation.

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Examples & Mock-Ups of Implementation

I've come up with a few very rough mock-ups of UI/UX changes that could be used to incorporate and facilitate such a feature's additional information.

In the end, I envision a user might see something like this when mousing over the down-vote button:

If they actually click the down-vote button, they'll be prompted to choose a reason. These reasons will most likely need to be customized on a per-site basis, but Aarobot's response above gives some good examples/guidelines. In this mock-up, the Submit button could be disabled unless the user selects "Other", then it enables once a certain number of characters is entered (like with comments). If the down-voter chooses one of the other options, there's an "automatic" submit once the radio button is clicked.

There could also be a checkbox option to "Include my username" for those who want the down-vote openly attributed to them.

All of this would pretty much necessitate a slight update to the current reputation interface as well to display this new data point, but it could be a very minor change (note the reason at the far right of the down-vote line-item):

Additionally, one could possibly expect an additional link at the bottom of each post to show any existing down-vote reasons:

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CONCLUSION

Okay, I've wasted way too much time on a long-defunct and obviously unpopular suggestion, but I wanted to really give this some "meat". As I said, it's extremely frustrating for me, personally, to get a down-vote with no additional feedback. The best I can do in those cases is ask for an explanation in the comments and hope that the person who cast the down-vote comes back and complies with my request. Very few people - again, especially new users - are going to go through the additional effort to research "what makes a good question/answer", then go through a critical analysis of their own post to see where it doesn't match those guidelines, and then figure out how to adjust the content of the posts so that it does meet the criteria for "good" (or, at least, "acceptable"). And, that's if they can figure out the "why" in the first place without having it shown to them. Whether out of pride, ignorance, or any of the many other reason for someone to have trouble seeing their own faults, that is often the biggest challenge.

Requiring some sort of reason - whether a canned response or a more detailed explanation - would help tremendously in alleviating that initial hurdle and help to more quickly improve the quality of questions and answers with a minimum of effort on the voter's part. It just doesn't make sense to me not to include this as a part of the down-voting process. This suggestion may never see the light of day, but I will still say it's definitely one of the more needed features for Stack Exchange overall.