Answers and questions allow both upvoting and downvoting - comments, however, only allow upvoting.
I think it would be useful to allow downvoting of comments for two reasons:
C'mon, people. The upvotes on comments mean approximately nothing. Let's have downvotes, too. The more dimensions of pointlessness this site adds, the sooner somebody dies from forgoing food and sleep while using it.
In other words, sure, why not? Plus, wasn't it Jeff himself who said that only having upvoting represents only half the potential information?
If a comment is wrong, respond to it with another comment. That provides a lot more information than a downvote which could mean anything.
I completely agree with the "undo an accidental upvote" idea, but I don't see any much point in downvoting comments.
In terms of the value of upvoting comments: if a comment indicates that an answer is wrong, the upvotes on that comment indicate support for the reason given. They're almost like downvotes for the answer, IMO - just without rep getting involved.
I'd also suggest that by having downvotes on comments, you're adding symmetry to the system, that is, treating comments in a similar way as you are treating answers and questions. From a purely UI point of view, maintaining symmetry is a good thing to do; it reduces potential user confusion and increases ease of use.
Originally, I thought everyone was right - we don't need to complicate it. But I changed my mind.
When the site first launched - 5 offensive tags would get a post removed. Over time, even a non-offensive post would garner some flags, and since they weren't reset - as t => infinity every post would be deleted. So a decay was added.
Comments now work the same way. Even a bad comment generates a few upvotes over time and users have no way to indicate no, this is a bad comment, it does not deserve upvotes. It may not be offensive, but it certainly doesn't contribute anything positive or funny.
So I think comment downvotes should be allowed in order to make comments more worthwhile. It will help filter the really good comments the way God intended while leaving the poor comments - the ones people disagree with - "below the fold".
Edit: I know this topic is old and crusty but I'm hoping the system works, and that by edits and additions I can raise more awareness.
This is another example of why we need comment downvoting, from the Moderator flagged comment screen: Comment Flagging Example http://ritter.vg/misc/stuff/why-we-need-comment-downvotes.png
It is unreasonable to make the claim that these comments are "noise, offensive or spam". You may not agree with them, and whoever flagged them certainly didn't, but comments are flagged because we can't downvote them, and it adds a lot of noise to the Moderator screen, plus the necessity to go through and clear the flags.
+1 I agree.
I've come across lots of situations where I think the wrong comments are standing out. They don't warrant a flag but there's no way to change what shows up without voting everything else up. It doesn't really make sense. Upvotes and downvotes are used to determine relative ordering of answers. I don't see why that doesn't apply to comment filtering too.
In Stackexchange podcast #3 Jeff says that a lot of the comment flags aren't justified.
Maybe people flag because they can't downvote?
First, if you accidentally upvoted a comment you didn't intend to
I don't think you would need to downvote it - I think that there should be a similar click-to-undo feature like there is with up/downvotes on posts but downvotes wouldn't need to be there to cancel out an upvote
Second, if you strongly believe that a comment is misleading, incorrect or off topic
If it's serious enough then you should flag it
IMHO, comments provide a way to speak your mind freely; upvotes provide a way for other users to indicate their agreement without wasting space with a follow-up comment. But if you disagree, you really should post a follow-up comment...
If a comment really bothers you, you can flag it. Enough flags, and it'll be removed. This is more useful than down-voting, which would presumably leave a misleading or abusive comment visible.
There's some value in keeping wrong answers around; even unhelpful ones can and are improved. But comments are ephemeral; they can't be edited outside of a short grace period, and shouldn't be the sole repository for important information. If a comment is bad, then it should be removed - not down-ranked.
But if you disagree, you really should post a follow-up comment. couldn't a similar thing be said about answers and questions as well?
Commented
Jun 10, 2017 at 15:54
Looking at the discussion, the opponents of the possibility to downvote comments rely mainly on the following arguments:
1) If you don´t like a comment, you can comment yourself and explain
While this is certainly a good way to contribute to the discussion, it has often not quite the same power as downvoting a comment. Firstly, it may be that a lot of people have commented on a question/answer (and comments) so that your comment is not even recognized, even if you directly adress the commentator. Secondly, even if your comment is found directly below the critized comment, it might be overread by many people only looking at the top comment. On the other hand, a downvote is immediately recognized and the quality of the comment will be checked by people.
2) You can flag a comment you don´t like
This feels a little like throwing a bomb on the dove that soiled your car. Isn´t flagging for offensive or spam comments? This can not be applied to a lot of comments which one would like to downvote nonetheless, though.
3) It is redundant
Then upvoting comments certainly is redundant, too, as it does not change reputation. (Yes, I know there is a hard-to-get badge for so and so many great comments, but this has nearly no meaning IMHO). I have the feeling that comments might be a bit underrated. They are often a valuable part of the discussion and sometimes even replace a full-fledged answer.
Sounds like a reasonable addition to me.
Comments were really designed to be a light-weight mechanism to communicate some ancillary information about the post. But I see the comment system on Stacks evolving out its 2nd-class status into a more robust part of the contribution process... for a few reasons:
I really like that when an answer gets enough downvotes it gets lightened. That's a good deterrent against people giving annoying answers. I'd love to see the same system (downvoting a few times make the comment lightened out) as deterrent for borderline troll types. Flagging and deleting is too blunt an instrument.
I'm against it for a reason that I believe hasn't been mentioned yet, but I also will present a compromise.
While the difference of up- and downvotes is a useful indicator for the quality of a post, the number of upvotes alone is also. That is simply because often people are strongly disagreeing with each other.
On top of that, a downvote is often given not because a post isn't useful or even inappropriate, but merely because people didn't like it. When emotions run high, it can even deteriorate into a mere tug-of-war between two mobs. Given that the term disparaging is already in the question this scenario is already in the room.
During controversies, seeing both votes is most useful, only positive votes second, and the difference is the least useful of all options.
In fact in such situations seeing the standard deviation could be a better indicator than the difference, an indicator I often use to gauge the potential value of literature or movies on Amazon or imdb.
For posts on SO, those arguments apply rarely, but even on SO controversies do frequently occur in comment sections, so in those cases displaying a difference only may be harmful.
YouTube, for example, has such a voting system and suffers from the phenomenon of voting mobs trying to vote an enemy into obscurity (I presume that the proposal is to keep having a comment's score influence its prominence as it does now).
Disqus, on the other hand - a discussion system often used on blogs - shows both up- and downvotes, and in the face of controversies, it so manages to allow all sides of an argument to live while still displaying interesting posts more prominently.
I understand that SO isn't a political blog, but there are still arguments, and people are as irrational when feeling attacked here as anywhere else. In that light I feel that such a proposal would increase bad blood.
A compromise could be to display the difference but use only the upvote count to determine how prominent the comment is placed (ie. wether it will be visible before one clicks show all comments). That would take a significant amount of incentive away for voting people down to silence them while still showing the average visitor sentiment.
The real question to me is "what does an up-vote on a comment really mean?"
I've always felt that it just implied somebody else was feeling it, and was giving you props... It really has nothing to do with reputation and ability to add witty comments doesn't imply you know how to code...
So with that said, I don't think this is necessary.
If it were to be implemented, then does a downvoted comment affect your rep? Does casting a downvote affect your rep? If you can get punished, should an upvoted comment give you rep?
Overall, I say no to this...
I think when enough people upvote an obnoxious answer other people may think this is true or a good idea. I see many of those and i really wish to express my disagreement. I would like comments with an up and down count so we can see how many ppl agree and disagree and not just get a average number ((agree count, disagree count) > (result = agress - disagree))
I believe you should be able to downvote comments, because the number next to a comment can often be taken as a poll on the popularity of the sentiment expressed, with no balancing, quick way to gauge the level of support for the opposite idea.
Take a practical example that I just ran into and caused me to look up comment downvoting here: I posted a question on another SE site that quickly received a comment about the long windedness of it. Within a few minutes, it had 2 upvotes already. In response, I posted an explanation that my actual question was obvious early on and that I was merely providing further details for those who wanted them.
Now for those taking just a quick glance at the responses, it looks like 2 people agreeing with the first comment and a bunch of my (long winded, heh) comments arguing against it. Other people actually have to take the time also to argue against it with their own comments (which is more time consuming than the effort invested by the upvoters), and even then, the original upvote count could give the false impression of a more popular support than might otherwise exist.
I'll play devil's advocate here though: If a valid counter argument exists, at least one person should take the time to respond with it in a new comment. Others can then quickly upvote this new comment and have its numeric tally stand against that of the original comment.
Oh boy. I might have just invalidated my own argument ;)
I just want to be able to downvote the meta-comments. Flagging them as noise has not proven effective.
meta.* site meta-meta?
Commented
Oct 7, 2012 at 11:30
Here is why I think down-voting comments could be a good idea.
I have just experienced a flame war in the comments section. A lot of answers here are arguing that a simple counter-comment is more useful than a down-vote. However, counter-comments can also lead to arguments over the two opposing views. By being allowed to down-vote, people could register their disagreement in a way that does not court argumentative discussion.
My understanding was always that up-votes on comments was intended to be a way to represent the fact that multiple people would have written that same comment, essentially, it would prevent "me too" comments.
I came to this understanding due to the way automatically-generated comments from the review queues worked. Certain reviewing actions would leave a comment on a person's post. If another person had already performed the same action, instead of leaving a comment, it would up-vote the existing comment.
If this is the case, than the vote count on a comment isn't so much it's score as it is the number of people who also wanted to leave that same comment.
If we allowed down-votes on comments, it would undermine that paradigm.
Just mentioning undoing a comment upvote has now been implemented, for immedate undoing anyway.
It's important to consider why a comment should be downvoted. Is it rude? There already is a "mark as unconstructive". Is it not that rude? Maybe it shouldn't be downvoted then.
Is it being downvoted for inaccurate information? Follow up comments can correct it, and then the real information should be added to an answer if the information is actually worth mentioning.
Questions and Answers are the core information parts of the site. Comments are an addition to assist Questions and Answer, and while they are important in many ways, they shouldn't become complicated.
I think comments have become more important over the years, some really good information in them, but moreso from their ability to provide clarification of a problem in an answer or question (and as a result discussions about information in another comment).
But their being useful comes in part from their simplicity.
An upvote on a comment allows people to say "I agree with this" and "me too" (etc) helping reduce potential noise from their otherwise posting duplicated comments. However, just because comments have an upvote to state people agree and/or something is valuable and should be noted by others, does not mean that downvotes would bring about more accuracy or usefulness.
With comments being simple little things, not agreeing means don't upvote the comment, if you disagree strongly enough then write another comment. This works well and I think complicating them with downvotes not only dilutes this already useful process, but adds layers of complexity.
Too much faff would come from it, and comments then become less simple as a means to leave a "note".
The current setup encourages both sides of the debate to be shown as people will voice the alternative opinion(s). Whereas with up and down votes on comments, all you see is the net result, and that as we know from answers isn't a great indication of the general opinion. A net of 5 could be from hundreds up and down, or 6 up and 1 down, etc.
So with net votes from having up/down votes on comments, we end up with the problem that people might agree with it and upvote because they don't have the contradictory comment giving them other ideas. This has a potential for the Bandwagon Effect so it ends up having a high net upvote count that is not really a good representative of the quality or accuracy of the comment.
Whereas without downvotes, people are more inclined to voice the alternative opinion and that comment gets upvoted instead, and/or the other comment doesn't get upvoted anymore.
Answers are not an example to debate this as they have completely different characteristics to comments. It's the information and debates in comments themselves which can influence voting in answers and questions, if we introduce downvotes to comments where do we discuss the comments...
Comments are used to quickly exchange short bits of information. I believe it was concluded that it wasn't necessary to use a full blown voting system on them, especially since comments that were voted up will float above the less useful ones in the previews.
Also votes on comments don't contribute to rep anyways, so downvoting on them would feel redundant. It should be clear if something in the comment is incorrect when other comments around it are voted up. Also as @Shog9 said, if there is something completely off about a comment you can flag it.
I am concerned that allowing downvotes would contribute in a negative fashion to the introduction of new users to the site.
Many times, comments are the communication mechanism that is used to guide users to read the faq or guide the new user to post in a different way.
I think it is inevitable that new user's comments during this back-and-forth would be downvoted heavily at times, when it would be better to guide them in a neutral-or-positive fashion towards the faq.
Completely agree with Jon Skeet here. If a comment is rude, wrong, irrelevant, or any number of other things that may offend you, simply respond with another comment stating your discontent.
That's the functionality of a comment, to sustain a constructive conversation.
Completely agree—since we have upvoting of comments, we should have downvoting too.
As things stand, a comment may have, say, 9 upvotes, giving the impression there is strong support for it in the community. Whereas in fact there may be 18 or 118 people who strongly disagree with the comment, so it should show a negative total.
This is terrible! It would be better not to have any voting on comments than to have this one-sided, misleading picture.
I think it should be permissible, but with no rep change for the action (and make it undo-able always). The lack of rep change will help negate some of the fear of downvotes in that area.
In a slightly off-topic note: I also feel that the comments should be editable for more than the five minutes after posting it. It is easy enough to post them that it is easier to post another than to edit a current one within the five minutes, anyways.
You can already flag why would you downvote. Comments aren't meant to mean anything(no rep). Upvoting is more for it showing up before the rest.
I want to add another reason for implementing downvotes on comments.
I see a lot of low quality comments recently and it feels like some people don't even think before they comment. Adding downvotes to comments would allow to manage all these low quality comments, useless "Thank you!" comments, and out-of-context conversations.
Comments should be handled similarly to answers and get deleted after they received a certain amount of downvotes.
