Penalise Downvotes without Comment / Reward Downvotes with Comments [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Encouraging people to explain down-votes

I know that this issue has been raised a number of times in the past, with some improvements being made to reduce the negative impacts it has on discussion, but the problem persists, and I would like to suggest a further change.

I am aware that the need to preserve anonymity when voting is an important aspect of the design of the community, and that making comments mandatory on downvotes would negate that.

What I am suggesting is that downvotes, without comments, should cost the voter the same number of Rep Points as the owner of the Answer. So that, if I were to downvote another user's Answer, I would lose 2 Rep Pts as would they.

I know there is a small notification bubble which pops up suggesting the voter add a comment to explain the vote, but it seems that is not encouraging alot of users to do so. If the same bubble basically illustrated a reward for the voter in adding a comment "If you add a comment, explaining your vote, you will gain 1 Rep Pt." there may be a greater engagement for people to do so.

(Yes, I am raising this as I have had 2 downvotes - and no other actions on my answers - in the last 48 hours with no comments, no explanations and no ideas why they did so. But I still think there is merit in this idea all the same.)

Answer 1

The following links may be helpful to you:

First: A note on the psychology of downvotes

Key Quote:

[Taking downvotes too seriously is an] erroneous assumption that they've done something wrong, rather than the truth [which is] that they've misunderstood the meaning of something done to them.

Downvotes should be taken as seriously as any "Caution: Falling Rocks" sign. It means you should keep your eyes peeled, but you don't stop driving, and you don't burst into tears.

Change Down Voting to Require Comment for Why _{(caution, very long)}

Relevant points of my (very long) answer

The negative reputation is rather minor, and the downvote is valid critisicm. It is not the most constructive criticism, but it is a very quick and easy way to indicate that "I find flaw with your answer".

As for being helpful, if I'm lost in New York city and I ask someone for directions, it doesn't matter how nice they are, if they are wrong. I appreciate that they were trying to help, but if they didn't know the correct answer, they should probably have stayed silent.

Downvotes are to indicate that the answer is wrong. On a technical advice site, this is critical. It is not only to indicate to the answerer, but to everyone else that they should not follow the advice within. While that's a little harsh, it helps a lot of people very quickly. Explaining your downvote is often just asking for a fight, because the answerer will refuse to concede.

If you don’t like my question you have to explain why.

Key point of my answer

Voting and commenting are completely separate mechanisms that were designed for different purposes.

Voting is to bubble the best answers to the top. Commenting is to engage.

So annoyed with no-comment, vindictive downvoting

Key points from TheTXI's answer

• I wish people would stop taking everything personal and assume that all downvoting is a vindictive personal attack when 95% of the time it is not.
• Not every downvote requires a comment. I should not have to explain myself every time I want to mark someone for being wrong.
• If someone doesn't want to give you a reason for why they downvoted you, then you should examine your post and see what it may have wrong with it compared to other posts.

Not everyone is right all the time! This includes both the downvoter and yourself. If you are wrong, you should try to fix it, if they are wrong, well, you're still right, so be happy about it.

Statler and Waldorf badge for explaining downvotes

Quotes from my answer

• Relevant comments: How do you determine relevance of the (forced) comments?
• Regexing the comments: Would any comment at all be sufficient?
• Repetitive comments: Rather than upvote another comment, people will post an identical one for themselves.
• Downvotes are comments (Redundant comments): Every time you downvote you are saying that you disagree. It IS your statement of criticism.

Allow users to leave an anonymous comment when voting

If you are nice enough to leave a comment on a downvote to explain yourself, [...] [Ed: emphasis mine]

Commenting is optional. It is meant to be.

Proposal: Require anonymous comment with downvotes [closed]

Jon B's response:

First, I don't think I should be required to justify my decisions to the world. Second, you can't force someone to type a meaningful comment, even if you force them to type a comment.