Since voting on meta sites mean something different on the main sites, can you change the tooltip as well:
...or something along those lines.
Having just downvoted a feature request here on meta, I saw the tooltip and thought exactly the same. I'd go as far as to suggest that the content of the tooltip on meta sites should be contextual, based on the "special" tags such as feature-request that have been applied to the question.
I doubt that it'll ever be considered a high priority piece of work within the UI, but it would be a little bit "tidier" if the tooltip for a feature-request post downvote read something like "please consider explaining why you disagree with this feature request". One of the "last 1% polish" that the UI would need.
I agree with this proposal, and think the tooltips should be changed as OP proposes above. But Chris's comment was good, and I think it needs to be addressed:
just because it's on meta doesn't stop the question being unclear and not useful - so the tooltip needs extending not just replacing.
There certainly are some questions on meta that are simple support questions—why did my upvotes stop giving me rep when I hit 200; why did a moderator delete my answer; etc. However, I think the majority of Meta questions, or at least the majority of the Meta questions that take up the most time are discussions and feature requests. It's these questions for which the new tooltips would make sense, and I think the system should be designed to facilitate these questions as much as possible.
It would be clunky to expand the tooltips to apply to everything: I agree, unless this is a support question, in which case this question is useful and clear. So why not change the tooltips so that they're appropriate most of the time, when it matters most, instead of now, where the tooltips are appropriate only rarely, when it matters least.
3.5 years after this request there is still the same debate. One could say that the usage pattern is more important than the correct naming of the tooltips. However there is the observation:
People also downvote feature-requests if they disagree with them regardless of what the tooltips says.
which we could change. The change would be to only agreement/disagreement vote on answers to feature requests. Either we just do it this way or we specifically change the tooltips so that tooltips of answers of questions on meta tagged feature-request read:
"This answer is useful and I agree with it" and "This answer is either not useful or I do not agree with it."
This would just describe what is lived practice for the last years. People mostly vote agreement/disagreement on answers of feature-requests. But it would have the additional chance to reduce downvotes on feature-request questions expressing purely a disagreement.
P.S.: Actually feature-requests should be formulated neutral ("What is the best way to...") and the first answer should be the proposal by the questioner.
I don't agree with this request.
While "I agree" and "I disagree" is one way that votes can be used on meta, it is not the only way, and I don't want that indoctrinated into users as the "official" meaning of voting on meta.
The current tooltips are correct, and any further subtleties are covered in each meta's help center now:
