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Encouraging people to explain downvotes

Whould it be nice to add a comment as mandatory option when one downvotes an answer? First if the answer is downvoted it's considered to be a wrong so that a comment could clarify that. Second it will help detect people who misused downvoting. what do you think?

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    A "mandatory option" doesn't make any sense.
    – Cody Gray
    Commented Mar 7, 2011 at 9:59
  • It's not a bad idea, but it should also be possible to upvote an existing comment instead of commenting yourself in case someone else already downvoted for the same reason.
    – Donald Duck
    Commented Feb 9, 2017 at 17:54

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Down-voting is already done far too infrequently, and it already incurs a relatively steep penalty on the down-voter. Why do you feel we need to de-incentivize it even more?

Plus, often times, someone has already left a comment indicating why the answer was wrong (or why the question is wretched), or there are already correct (and higher-voted) answers that contradict the down-voted one. The down-voted answerer doesn't need his/her hand held.

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    Yup. We need more downvoting - people are apparently afraid to do so, because it is not nice. Meh.
    – Piskvor left the building
    Commented Mar 6, 2011 at 22:45
  • @Piskvor'sSemifiniteMonkeys I think many times a critical comment is far more detrimental than a downvote, as if people are afraid of upvoting a possibly incorrect answer.
    – TLP
    Commented Dec 4, 2011 at 17:12

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